Flushed Away: The Last Change of Scene
by Firefall Bangenthump
Summary: Flushed Away: Roddy and Rita finally return home in time for Christmas, but the festive season is not so joyful for Roddy who is forced to make a fateful decision. Meanwhile, Mr Malone is embarked on an ambitious plan to bring back an old family friend..
1. Portsmouth Harbour

Everything to do with the original Flushed Away is the result of the inestimable brain-power of DreamWorks and Aardman Animations studios. This story will use characters of my own devising which were introduced in _Yet Another Change of Scene_- please forgive any trouble this causes.

Readers may notice that some kind of temporal distortion appears to have taken place- this story takes place around Christmas, despite an early snowmelt being featured in a previous one. I plead dramatic necessity as my only defence.

Grateful thanks, as always, to the reviewers of previous pieces.

* * *

_The door to the shop opened, causing a small silver bell to ring brightly._

_The two figures who had just entered- a man and woman, both bundled against the London winter in expensive-looking coats- rubbed their hands and looked around. On the glass of the shopfront windows, the name 'Kensington High Street Pets' could be read in reverse. Multicoloured lights glowed around the edges in an attempt to procure a festive air for less than ₤5.20._

_"A stroke of luck we found this place, isn't it dear?" said the man in a refined accent. "Not many places are open on Christmas Eve."_

_"Yes, and it was so close to home," said his wife. "I just know Tabitha will be so pleased."_

_Their conversation had attracted the attention of the only creature in the shop to still be awake. A young rat was peering curiously at them over a pile of shredded paper. The shopkeeper emerged from behind the desk and nodded to them._

_"Good evening, madam and sir. What can I help you with?"_

_"Ah, good." The man stepped forward briskly. "Well, we're in a bit of a bind. You see, we promised Tabitha- our daughter- a new friend for Christmas but we seem to have left it to the last minute."_

_"That can happen," said the shopkeeper, sagely._

_"It usually does," said the wife, with that kind of brittle cheeriness which indicates a recently-declared ceasefire. __"Anyway, we were rather hoping...that we could pick something up tonight."_

_The keeper scratched his head. "Well, there's not many here. We've just about sold out of most things. What kind of pet did you have in mind? Dog? Cat?"_

_"Well, she wanted a pony of course," said the man. They all laughed. "But __I think the Council would have something to say if they found it in our kitchen! So something a little smaller. Something easy to take care of."_

_The keeper looked around and spotted the rat, who was watching them with interest while nibbling on a piece of food._

_"Well, there's always rats."_

_"Rats?" said the woman, in a tone that was far from convinced of the merits __of that notion._

_"Don't let the reputation fool you," said the keeper. "They're very good. Loyal, dependable, nice and small too. Cheap to keep. They won't leave a mess, you don't have to walk them every day."_

_"It sounds perfect," agreed the man. "All right. We'll do that, then."_

_The shopkeeper smiled and went over to the young rat's box. With practised care, he picked up the rat and put it into a small travelling cage. It looked momentarily confused at this change of scene, and then relaxed. Events looked to be taking a turn for the better!_

_"Is there anything else I can help you with?" said the keeper._

_"Well, we'll need somewhere to keep the little fellow," said the man. He pointed to a large gilt cage in the corner. "We'd better take that as well."_

_The keeper began ringing up the cost of the sale. "I'll throw in some food as well, just to get you started."_

_"Thanks awfully," said the man._

_"By the way," said his wife. "Does he have a name yet?"_

_The shopkeeper looked somewhat put-off. "Shouldn't you have asked that before you married him?"_

_"No, no, I mean the rat." She laughed. The young rat had his face at the bars of his little cage and was admiring the Christmas lights glowing around the shop window._

_"His name is Roderick, madam. Roddy for short. Roddy St. James."_

* * *

Below the deck of the _Jammy Dodger II_, Rita Malone glared at the condenser in the hope that it would get the message, but her thousand-watt emerald stare had its limits and an inanimate engine component was one of them. 

She sighed and stuck out a hand.

"Pass me the pipe cleaner, please. We'll have to do this the hard way."

Roddy St. James, who had been balancing the pipe cleaner on his palm to see how long he could do it, flicked it into the air, caught it again and passed it to her.

"What's the problem with this, anyway? The engine still runs."

Rita began working over the inside of the condenser with the pipe cleaner.

"That's because we've got two condensers. We're running on the other one now, but this one's stuffed. Look." She withdrew the pipe cleaner. It was coated in what looked to Roddy like hard-baked dust.

"Scale," said Rita, with disgust. "Now that's something that shouldn't even be possible in a condenser. This is what happens when you're running impure water through it- the dirt and salt builds up in the pipes and blocks it. Do you see?"

"I'm just enjoying the novelty of watching you doing routine maintenance for once," said Roddy, grinning. Rita feigned a look of annoyance.

"I'm only doing this because I wouldn't trust you with it. You're getting better, Roddy, but you're not an engineer yet. I want you watching what I'm doing, not watching me."

"Since when did that become a problem?"

"Since I needed to show you how to clean out the primary condenser, of course. There'll be time for everything else when we've fixed it."

Roddy peered over her shoulder. Obsessive maintenance and attention to detail was one of Rita's characteristics, inculcated from birth and eminently justified in a world where a functional condenser meant the difference between a working motor and a pile of dry scrap.

"Well, remember where we're been. Ever since we left Dover, the boat's been either in sewers or salt water. Goodness knows what's been sucked into the intakes. And the beaching on Burhou won't have helped. We probably took on a lot of sand there and sand in an engine is like a..."

"Cheese-grater in a soufflé?" said Roddy.

"That'll do for now. What we really need now is an evaporator. We're going to have to flush the whole system clean and I'm not putting dirty water through it again." Rita straightened up and closed the condenser. "Where can we possibly get enough pure water to do that?"

Roddy looked around. "We've still got the kettle. And we've still got electricity to boil it. If we divert steam from the kettle into the auxiliary condenser we'll soon have pure water to use."

Rita laughed as she saw the sense of that. "Okay, maybe I should take back what I said about you not being an engineer yet."

"Oh, you think that'll work for the engine? I just wanted a cup of tea but if it'll work on the other thing, I guess that's fine too." Roddy grinned.

"It'll take a long time though. It could take whole litres to flush out the circulation system." Rita looked slightly doubtful.

"So? Where do we have to be that can't wait?" Roddy looked at her.

"Home, of course," said Rita. "I know, they're probably not expecting us."

"They probably didn't expect most of what happened." Roddy put his arms around Rita and rested his head on her shoulder. "Funny to think that only a couple of days ago I was hanging from Jasper's plane with the Toad trying to kill me."

Rita relaxed into him. The chaotic events on Burhou were still fresh in their memories. "Funny? I don't remember you laughing much at the time."

Roddy conceded that. "Okay, maybe 'funny' isn't the right word. It was nice seeing them all though...Jasper, Sofia, Rhys...just like Monaco."

"You nearly got killed in Monaco," pointed out Rita.

"Yes, and I nearly got killed on Burhou as well. So as I said: just like Monaco."

Rita said nothing. The 'holiday' her parents had orchestrated for them had seen them face more danger in a matter of months than in their lives to date, but it had also made possible some things that previously weren't. The way they were standing now, for instance. She resisted a desire to sink further into her companion's arms and remembered the engine problem which had brought them below in the first place.

"We'd better get started if we're to put your brilliant idea into practice. Get the kettle ready." She moved to a locker and produced a short length of insulated tubing. It was a simple effort to plug one end securely over the kettle spout and the other over the condenser's steam intake. Roddy filled the kettle with water and put it on the coil of copper wire which served as the _Jammy Dodger Ii_'s hotplate. It was a simple device- current was fed through it by the alternator- but highly effective. The kettle was boiling in no time.

"Be careful to keep the water topped up. Don't let it run dry or it'll burn out the bottom." Rita watched it carefully. The first drops of purified water were already dripping out of the condenser. She placed a bucket underneath it to catch them.

"It's not very fast, is it?" said Roddy. "We've got larger metal containers. Why not use one of them?"

"Because we need to get the steam into the condenser and the hose won't fit anything else." Rita shrugged. "Nothing to do but wait." She made her way on deck. Roddy followed with a bucket, which he dipped into the water.

"Don't they say that a holiday is ninety-five percent waiting and five percent pure terror?" he asked jovially.

"I think that's meant to be the life of a soldier," said Rita.

"Close enough for me," said Roddy. He straightened up and looked around.

* * *

The _Jammy Dodger II_ had arrived in Portsmouth Harbour having proceeded through the narrow entrance in the wake of HMS _Illustrious_, an aircraft carrier so huge that Roddy and Rita could barely believe that it could still move. They were now moored in a drain near The Hard. Rita had decided to call a day of maintenance because, as she put it, there was no way that they were going to survive everything they'd survived only to break down near home. They'd never hear the end of it. Roddy picked up the bucket and went back below to top up the kettle. He'd never hear the end of it if he let it burn out. Putting the bucket aside, he noticed a large box in the corner of the engine room. Frowning, he went to investigate it. To his surprise, it was filled with small items wrapped in paper- any paper that had been available. One little package bore a headline from _Le Monde_ while another was a shiny duck-egg blue. He sifted through them curiously and then went back on deck.

"Rita? What's going on with this box down here?"

She was examining the finger joints on the mechanical arm as she answered.

"Oh, them? Just presents. You know, for my brothers and sisters."

Roddy felt a pang of guilt. "Oh, dear...I'm sorry. I haven't been collecting anything...should I have been? I mean, I could go and look around here..."

Rita smiled at him. "Don't worry, Roddy. They're not your brothers and sisters yet, despite what my parents would have you think. I've taken care of it. Besides, even if they were your brothers and sisters I know you'd have forgotten."

"My memory is fine," said Roddy.

"Oh? Then why didn't you realise I was collecting the presents? You didn't notice that I bought nine model Eiffel Towers in Paris?"

"I assumed they were souvenirs."

"It didn't strike you as bizarre that I had nine of them?"

"Rita, if I made comment about everything you do that strikes me as bizarre-" Roddy began, a broad grin spreading over his face.

She chuckled. "Okay, I'll pay that one. Anyway, that's what they are."

Roddy nodded. He remembered that when he had first met Rita's family, he had watched through the window as she distributed gifts to her various siblings and felt that first real pang of longing, the wish that he had something similar in his life. "I should have remembered," he said.

"No, it's all right." Rita wiped her hands on her Union Jack trousers and stowed the mechanical arm away. "We'll tell them they're from both of us. It would only have complicated things if you had. We'd have been arguing about what to get them." She looked at him with mock severity. "You have no sense of taste."

"I have no sense of taste? Oh, that's rich." Roddy grinned and clambered onto the deck. "Tell me, do the words 'situational aesthetic' mean anything to you?"

"Marginally more than does the _Principia Mathematica_, but otherwise no." Rita joined him at the stern.

"Well, in simple terms it means that 'it seemed like a good idea at the time'." Roddy dipped another bucket over the side. "And then you get home and look at what you've bought and you wonder whether you were on drugs."

"You could help me sort them out. I've not really decided who should get what." Rita followed him down to the engine room and helped him refill the kettle. She looked approvingly at the small but steady stream of water trickling out of the condenser. "This is working better than I thought, Roddy. Well done, that was a good idea of yours."

"You say that like it's some kind of rarity." Roddy put the bucket down and raised an eyebrow at her.

"Either that or I'm just ignoring you the rest of the time." She walked past him, brushing a hand against his side. "Come on. Help me get the box up top and we'll go through them."

* * *

Roddy looked up. Above them the eerily skeletal Spinnaker Tower glowed against the sky, draped in multicoloured lights. 

Multicoloured lights...

_"His name is Roderick, madam. Roddy for short. Roddy St. James."_

"Pardon?" The words had come so clearly through his memory that he thought they had been spoken aloud. Rita looked up quizzically.

"Fergus?" she said again.

"Roddy," said Roddy.

She poked him. "My brother Fergus, genius. Do you think he'd like one of the model Eiffels?"

Roddy remembered the largest member of the Malone clan. "I think the real one would be more appropriate."

Rita laughed. "All right, we'll find something else for him. That means that the last Eiffel goes to...Seamus." She looked at a list in her hand. "Yeah. That's right."

Roddy wrote the name on the newspaper wrapping around the ninth souvenir model. "I'd better check on the kettle. It's been a while since I did last." He stood up and went below. "Why do you want to get home, exactly?

I mean, obviously you do. So do I. But you seem insistent on it."

Rita put the list aside. "Well, we might as well try to get there in time for a family Christmas."

"A what?" Roddy came on deck again.

"A family Christmas," repeated Rita. "Don't tell me that you don't..."

She trailed off and took in the polite confusion on Roddy's face. Of course he didn't. She sometimes forgot about the world that Roddy came from. He had no family- he was closer to the long-dead August St. James, whose uniform hung in a cupboard down below, than to any living relatives. To Rita this was an unthinkable situation. Her family had been a constant in her life, at once a source of strength and a cause for concern. But for Roddy, it was still something to adjust to. She kicked herself for forgetting.

"Sorry. I forgot for a moment that you...that you..." She sought for a way to end that sentence that didn't sound harsh. She gave up and abandoned it. "Well, anyway, the whole family spends the day together. We share presents, a big meal. You must know the sort of thing I mean."

Roddy nodded hesitantly. His old family (the word 'owners' stung his pride) had not been especially garrulous and their well-ordered lives stood in stark contrast to the Brownian phenomenon that was the Malone family.

"So...you spend the whole day together?"

"Yes."

Roddy paused again. He liked Rita's family. He knew he did. But the idea of voluntarily spending more time with them than was necessary struck him as interesting to say the least. Rita watched his face carefully and must have detected that thought.

"It isn't as bad as all that, Roddy. Grandma goes to bed mid-afternoon anyway."

"I wasn't thinking about that, actually…" Roddy looked profoundly distracted. Rita watched him for a moment and gave up.

"And it'll be Mum's birthday when we get back as well," she said. Roddy looked up.

"Do we need to find something for her for that? We could have a look around here but I'm not sure if we'd be able to find anything."

"No, no. Her birthday's always been on Christmas Day." Rita smiled to herself. "We always thought that meant she should get two presents but she'd say that having us all together was present enough. Plus we couldn't really afford it anyway."

"It's always difficult to know what to do when someone's born close to a holiday," said Roddy. "I remember that problem as well."

"You? But who did you have to give presents to?" Rita raised an eyebrow.

"Well…nobody of course. But my…family…"

"Owners?"

Roddy winced. It was the accurate term, of course, but still…

"Y…yes…they never knew when I was born of course so they always said that my birthday was the day they…"

"Bought you?"

Roddy winced again. Again, she was right…he would have preferred her not to be, but Rita was nothing if not an uncomplicated speaker.

"Yes."

"What day was that?"

"Christmas Eve." Roddy closed his eyes. He could still see the shop lights glowing softly. He opened them again and saw the lights of the Spinnaker Tower, almost mirroring his memory.

"Well, that's tomorrow!" said Rita. "You should have told me! In fact…I don't think I knew when your birthday was. Funny, that. I should know. So you said that was when your owners celebrated it…but when was it really?"

Roddy shrugged. "You know…I don't know. I don't remember."

They sat in silence for a long time before Roddy voiced the thought both of them had formed.

"In fact, Rita, you could say that my life was a blank sheet of paper before I met you."

She smiled gently. Maybe she'd gone too far. Roddy was never at ease talking about his past, as if it was some kind of embarrassment. He'd been terrified of her finding out about it when they had first met. Rita had tried to tell him then that it didn't matter but he'd pushed her away and since then she hadn't worked out a way to bring the matter up. Perhaps it would have been better if she hadn't. Roddy was looking pensive. His eyes were raised to the Spinnaker's lights, but they weren't focused on anything that Rita could see. Her face softened and she leaned across and kissed him, breaking whatever spell he had been under.

"Blank pieces of paper are what symphonies are written on, Roddy. Remember that."

He smiled faintly. "I had no idea you were a musical type."

"I can hold a mean tune. And you know I can dance." She patted his hand. "Now come on. We should check the kettle. We should have enough water by now."


	2. Christmas Eve

The engine purred. Rita cast an expert eye over the row of gauges to check that the pure water had done its job.

"Pressure looks good, Roddy. I think you did it!"

Roddy looked up from the other side of the engine.

"So I can make a cup of tea now?" he asked.

"Only if you make one for me too," said Rita.

"Well, I'll check my schedule, but I can't see that being too much of a problem." Roddy picked up their cups from a shelf and topped up the kettle again. Rita disappeared back on deck, and Roddy felt the floor lurch underneath him as she brought the _Jammy Dodger II_ around and turned into the drain heading for London. He measured out the leaves carefully and paused. It hadn't occurred to him for a moment to doubt that his move to the sewers had been the best decision of his life. Everything he could have ever hoped for was there- and Rita too, he added to himself. Far more than he could have hoped. And despite the trials of recent months, during which both of them had passed under Death's dark wing on more than one occasion, he had never felt any longing for his old life. Now they were going home. The thought should have made him as happy as it was making Rita- but she was returning to her beloved family. Roddy…well, he was returning to her family as well, but it was _her_ family at the end of the day wasn't it?

He looked around him and saw a coil of festive lights hanging from the roof. They'd forgotten to put them up. He clamped the frayed copper end of the wire in an alligator clip- Shocky would have been proud- and connected the clip to the alternator. The lights blazed on in all the colours of the spectrum. Roddy stood for a moment, remembering the other set of lights he had seen all those years ago in Kensington…

He shook himself and the memory disappeared. He put the teas on a tray made from a bottlecap and draped the lights around his shoulder before climbing back on deck. The drain entry was already a distant circle of fading light behind them. The boat's powerful lights were aimed ahead now, pointing the way for their captain who was steering with one hand.

"Thanks," she said, taking her tea from Roddy. Rita did a double-take and laughed. "What are you doing with those lights?"

"Well, they were taking up space down below." Roddy put his own tea aside and began thinking of ways to rig the lights.

"Since when has taking up space on this boat been an offence?" asked Rita, grinning.

"In the interests of a happy relationship, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that." Roddy fingered a nail. "Could you give me a hand with this?"

Rita secured the helm and went to assist. The string of lights was soon crowning the cockpit, casting a multicoloured glow about the _Jammy Dodger II_ as it entered the heart of Portsmouth. It was a small city, far smaller than London, but remarkable for the number of uniformed rats. The harbour had been the stronghold of the Royal Navy for centuries and the tradition was still strong below the streets. Roddy, who was wearing his wearing his Commander's jacket, got more than a few salutes from ratings who noticed his gaze. Rita was more concerned with finding the turn to London.

"I think it's right here," she said, pointing down a large tunnel. "Check the maps, would you? I don't want to get lost in my own drains."

"Portsmouth still counts as 'yours'?" said Roddy, joking.

"Where my boat goes, those are my drains," said Rita. "Now check the maps, navigator."

"Or you could check the signs," said Roddy, pointing to the large green drain-sign hanging over the tunnel entrance. Through the scrappy paint job and even scrappier rust patches, the word LONDON was visible.

Rita looked at it hard and made the turn. She looked over to Roddy, who was watching her smugly.

"Don't…say…a…word," she said, fighting not to smile.

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it."

"What did I just say?"

"Not to say _a_ word. By my count, I said six. Seventeen now. Eighteen. Nineteen…"

Rita laughed. "Twenty?"

"Probably more than that by now. Anyway, I don't mind having to read the signs for you, just so long as I don't have to steer at the same time." Roddy picked up his tea again and sipped at it delicately.

"Since when have you been any good with reading signs, Roddy?" Rita gave him a meaningful look. Roddy hesitated, unsure of how to read it.

"What…kind of signs?" he tried.

Rita made no reply, but cocked an eyebrow and shrugged. Roddy grinned nervously and collected the cups.

"I'll just take these below," he said, and disappeared. Rita watched him go and sighed. Roddy wasn't the only one with mixed feelings about the holiday ending. Rita was glad to be getting back, if only because it meant that they'd be far away from Parisian cats, Genoese assassins and rogue Channel seabirds, but she knew that it also meant closing a chapter of their lives they would never forget. They'd found out a lot about each other in the few months they'd been away, far more than they'd have found out had they never left London in the first place. She'd been angry with her parents for setting them up on the trip, but by now felt at least willing to forgive, if not quite forget, the brazen conspiracy which had put her together with Roddy. All the same…there were things they hadn't done and, if she was honest with herself, they weren't things she would have felt happy about doing within ten miles of her parents.

Aside from anything else, they almost certainly knew.

* * *

Roddy returned to the deck and threw their pillows back on the bed. He smoothed down the covers carefully and then noticed that Rita was watching him with what he considered to be undue attention.

"No need to look at me like that. You might not trust me with the evaporators but you could at least trust me to make a bed a nice place to be."

"I do," said Rita, half to herself. Then she blinked to clear the thoughts which had crowded her head. "I mean, right. But until you learn the difference between evaporators- which we don't have- and _condensers_ of which we have two, I'll watch you any time I like."

"Fine, fine." Roddy raised a hand in mock surrender. "But I'd like to lay claim to a least a few minutes of privacy each day, if it's all the same to you. Some things are best left unseen."

"I don't doubt it." Rita turned back to the controls, in part so that Roddy couldn't see the blush that threatened her face. He went and joined her.

"Your watch or mine? I mean, I wouldn't want to intrude if you want to be alone with 'your' drains." He flashed a grin. Rita looked sideways at him and grinned back.

"All right, you can take first watch. Think of it as an early birthday present for tomorrow."

"Oh, thanks, it's just what I've always wanted." Roddy took his place at the controls. "But you don't have to bother about doing anything for my birthday tomorrow. It isn't even my birthday. Not really." He tried to sound careless about it but Rita detected the note in his voice. She paused and half-turned. "If I offended you before…if I shouldn't have mentioned it. Your old life, I mean…you can always tell me to shut up if I go too far."

"I don't think the Duke of Wellington would have the courage to tell you to shut up," said Roddy cheerfully. Rita went back to him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Seriously, Roddy. Tell me if I do that again."

"Do what again? It didn't matter anyway," said Roddy, somewhat self-destructively. "Get some rest. I'll wake you when it's your turn on watch."

Rita nodded. "Good night, then, Roddy." She kissed him lightly and turned in. Roddy adjusted the wheel slightly and looked at the map to get his bearings. The Christmas lights glowed brightly around him as he returned to the tunnel ahead.

* * *

"Rita?"

She woke up. Rita was one of those blessed with the ability to go from sleep to wakeful alertness in the sort of timespan normally considered of interest only to particle physicists, but this time she was a little slow in rousing herself. That was a relative term, of course. Rita couldn't help but shake her head when she looked up at Roddy. Where he was standing beside her, Roddy wore a multicoloured halo courtesy of the cockpit lights.

"You're a vision, Roddy," she said, standing up and stretching. "What's wrong? It isn't my watch yet."

"No, it isn't. But I need your help. There's a problem." He sounded serious.

"What? Are the maps wrong? Or are you reading them wrong?"

"I'm reading them fine. And they're probably right, but that isn't what I mean. Come and see." He led her up to the cockpit and pointed.

"This tunnel should be running straight from London, but it isn't. Look at the water level. There should be much more flow."

Rita looked. The tide was well below the line of algae on the sewer walls which marked its usual height. "You're right. What could be causing this? A blockage up ahead?"

Roddy shrugged. "I don't know. But this tunnel ends up connecting to the Hyde Park Treatment Plant…you remember that?"

Rita nodded. "You think I'd forget where we lost the first _Jammy Dodger_?"

"Well, you move in mysterious ways your wonders to perform," said Roddy innocently.

"Just remember those wonders," replied Rita. "Maybe it's something to do with the Hyde plant. Either way, I think we'll need to find a new route home. That water's too shallow to risk taking the _Dodger_ in there. If there's anything on the bottom it could gut us badly."

"There's a way to be gutted nicely?"

"Keep asking questions like that and rest assured, Roddy, I'll find one for you."

"Okay, but keep it to yourself when you do." Roddy nodded to her. They both burst out laughing.

"All right, all right, ceasefire." Rita shook her head.

"In that case I want the UN here to police it."

"You don't think I'm peacekeeper material?" said Rita.

"You're the material which _causes_ peacekeepers." Roddy picked up the maps. "I'll work out an alternate route."

"No, no, you go to bed." Rita took the maps. "Seriously, I do know these drains better than you do. I'll take over from here. I'll wake you when I know where we're going."

"Just make sure we don't run into any icebergs," said Roddy, going aft.

"Don't be silly, Roddy." Rita turned on him with a glare too ferocious to be real.

"Sorry."

"Everyone knows you don't get icebergs south of Cirencester."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm sure you could work something out. Good night. When did you say you'd wake me?"

Rita thought for a moment. "When I know what we're doing."

"Shouldn't I be awake for at least part of the next year, though?"

She threw a scrap of paper at him. He ducked and grinned before kicking off his shoes and pulling the covers over himself. Rita, shoulders shaking silently, pulled the map over and began studying it intently.

* * *

Roddy woke up to the sound of scraping metal. He stared at the brickwork overhead. It didn't look familiar. He sat up and rubbed his eyes as he began taking in their surroundings. The drain they were in was narrow and low, the funnel barely able to fit below the curving roof. He stood up as the _Jammy Dodger II_ bumped against the side again- it was so narrow than even a pilot so skilled as Rita was unable to avoid all collisions. She winced and patted the boat's wheel comfortingly.

"Sorry about that, mate. Should be the last one."

Roddy joined her. She looked around at the movement.

"Oh, you're up? I wasn't going to wake you for a few hours yet."

"And you were going to wake me when you know what you're doing. So I assume you still don't?" Roddy watched the gauges.

"I know just fine. I was letting you sleep, that's all." Rita pointed to the map. Roddy followed her finger, which was pointing to a side-tunnel so small that it barely showed up at all.

"This is the alternative route?" he asked.

"It's only short. It'll connect up with the main Greenwich trunk and guide us right home." Rita narrowly avoided another collision. "I think."

"Yes, but it hardly shows at all." Roddy grinned. Rita rolled her eyes.

"Everyone's a comedian," she said.

"I'm glad you think so. Is there anything I can do to help?" Roddy looked around. "If I pull the floats inboard that'll give us a lot more space."

Rita nodded doubtfully. "But it'll also mean that any collisions could do us some real damage. At least the floats are keeping us in the middle of the channel where there's water beneath the propeller."

They drifted into the side again. One of the tennis ball floats burst, the report echoing up and down the narrow tunnel. Roddy half-ducked at the noise.

"At this rate we might not have any floats left. Is it that hard to keep it straight in here? I'd trust you to drive this thing through the eye of a needle, Rita." He looked at her hopefully. She finally relented.

"All right, pull them in and stow them securely. And then leave me alone. This is tricky and I can't afford any distractions."

Roddy saluted and went to pull in the destroyed float. "I distract you?"

Rita laughed. "In every way possible. Hurry up with those floats."

Roddy hauled them in and tied them to the rail to keep them from falling over again. With their bulk removed, Rita was able to concentrate on keeping the boat straight. Roddy followed her orders faithfully and kept quiet at the back of the boat, sweeping around the stern with a broom.

* * *

Rita gritted her teeth and reversed the engine, bringing the boat almost to a complete stop and enabling her to turn it on the spot down a wider tunnel. A wire trailed from the tunnel roof and snagged on the array of Christmas lights on the cockpit, which were wrenched off and dumped on Roddy, who struggled to get up from underneath them.

"Why do these lights always tangle up like this?" he muttered.

"You just had an illuminating experience, Roddy?" called Rita, cheerfully.

"Rita, although everyone may be a comedian like you said before, in your case I think it's on your mother's side." Roddy pushed the lights aside and looked up at her, expecting the usual sharp riposte, but she was staring ahead.

"Roddy," she said carefully, "Are you touching anything metal?"

"No. Why?" Roddy joined her and saw it. Ahead of them, another bundle of wires hung from the tunnel roof. Rubber insulation was fraying severely, and a handful of the brightly-coloured strands hung down. The occasional spark dropped from the copper fronds, crackling nastily. Live wires. Roddy knew he was safe so long as he wasn't touching anything conductive- the boat's hull would carry the current safely into the water- but then he looked sideways and realised that Rita was still gripping the metal of the steering wheel.

"Are you sure you should be holding that? Maybe I could get you some gloves…"

"Forget it, I'll be fine." She waved him off.

"This isn't one of those things you can be gung-ho about, Rita. There's no telling how much power those wires are carrying." Roddy moved to help her.

"I said no! I have to keep us straight or we'll go into the walls again!"

"And that's worth the risk?"

"Yes. Look, there aren't that many sparks. They can't be packing that much voltage." Rita smiled at him encouragingly.

Roddy frowned and picked up his broom handle. He went to the bows and watched the wires approach.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" asked Rita from the wheel.

"I'll try to lift them over the cockpit," said Roddy, holding the broom up as the wires came close enough to touch. If he could pick the wires up on the bristles, he would be able to guide them away from the boat's structure.

"Roddy! No! What's the broom handle made of?"  
Rita's frantic shout got his attention. The broom had once been the end of a small painbrush, its bristles tamped flat to make the broomhead, but they were still attached to the thin metal ferrule that had held them to the brush handle. Roddy dropped it just in time and threw himself to the deck as the dangling wires passed over him.

"Thanks for the warning!" he said. Rita smiled and flipped him a salute.

"No problem, Roddy. Any time-"

Roddy's heart stopped. The wires had missed him, but had then draped across the frame of the cockpit- and Rita's other hand must still have been on the wheel. There was the _bang_ of arcing electricity, a flash of blue so bright that Roddy saw it through his eyelids, the once-smelled-never-forgotten tang of burnt metal, and Rita disappeared behind the control panel before she even had time to cry out. Roddy scrambled to his feet, ignoring the screech of metal as the uncontrolled boat turned sideways and jammed hard across the tunnel.

"Rita! Rita, answer me!" He vaulted into the cockpit. Rita was lying on the floor. She made no answer. Roddy dropped to his knees beside her and touched two fingers to her neck, desperately trying to find a pulse.

A hand knocked his other elbow, which he was using to prop himself up. He fell across her and looked up to see those green eyes laughing at him.

"Rubber soles, Roddy!" She indicated her indestructible sewer boots with a big grin. Of course. As if Rita would put herself in that kind of danger without being prepared!

"Oh, very funny. For heaven's sake, Rita, don't ever do that again!" Roddy let out his breath with relief. Rita sat up, chuckling.

"You didn't think that was funny?"

"No! Of course I didn't! It was-"

"A _shocking_ joke?" Rita grinned.

Roddy sighed. "You're the only one who could laugh about that. I really thought…" He stopped and looked at her in silence, trying to comprehend the awful depths of what he had thought. Rita gazed back, trying to read his unreadable expression.

The boat slipped again and fell back into the current. Rita got to her feet and steered them out of the narrow tunnel and into the Greenwich trunk, a far wider boulevard. Sunlight was streaming down through the vents. Roddy blinked and peered at it.

"It must be mid-morning at least!"

"Closer to mid-day," said Rita, also looking at it. "Funny how you lose track of time when you're having fun, isn't it?" She looked at him and smiled. "Oh…and happy birthday, Roddy."

He laughed. "I thought I said you didn't have to bother!"

"And what gave you the idea that I was listening?" She put her arms around his neck. "Besides, it's Christmas Eve. We should be enjoying this time."

Roddy smiled. "You scared the daylights out of me back there."

She kissed him. "I won't do it again."

"No, because next time you'll listen to me." Roddy nodded to her severely and looked at the pile of lights in the stern.

"I'm not even listening to you now," said Rita sweetly. "Give us a hand with the maps, will you? Now we're back in the main drains I think I can trust you not to lead us astray."

"Would I do that to you?" said Roddy, in a tone of innocence. He picked up the maps and located their position.

* * *

"I'm sorry we're not going to get home in time." Roddy looked up from his plate that night. "I know you wanted Christmas with your family."

"That'll still happen," Rita shrugged. "It'll just happen tomorrow. We didn't know we were going to have to make that big detour. That's where we lost the time. I wonder what caused it?"

Roddy unpegged a scrap of paper which had been drying against the funnel.

"Maybe this could help." He passed it over. "I fished it in while you were below preparing the food."

Rita unfolded it. It was a newspaper article, or at least part of it. The headline read LONDON WATER BOARD ANNOUNCES TEMPORARY CLOSURE OF HYDE PARK FACILITY.

"Yeah, that'd do it…" She put it aside. "Shutting that down would redirect the flow across the whole sewer system and change the current for miles around. Cheers for that, Roddy."

Roddy shrugged and put their plates into the bucket of water. "Strange to think about that place being closed all the same."

"It is," said Rita. "Don't bother with the washing up, Roddy. There'll be time for that later."

He put them aside and sat next to her on the bed. "It's also strange to think that the holiday is finally over. I mean…so much has happened. And tomorrow we'll be back in London, for Christmas…and it'll be as if none of it ever happened."

Rita put an arm around his shoulders. At the word 'Christmas', Roddy's face had taken on that wistful look she had seen him wear in Portsmouth. It worried her.

"We'll remember it, Roddy. And I'm pretty sure everyone we met will remember it. Rhys, Sofia, the Bruces…even Le Frog. And I doubt the Toad will forget what you did on Burhou."

"Yes, but I mean…we'll be back to our old lives. Well, you will be. I'll be back to my new one." Roddy smiled weakly.

Rita held him closer. "Don't look so glum, Roddy. It's Christmas Eve. And I know you said not to do anything for your birthday, but…" She guided his hands to her waist. He looked down and couldn't help but laugh. Instead of her customary belt Rita was wearing a length of shiny red ribbon around her, tied artfully into a bow. Roddy took a length of ribbon and pulled. It slid easily and the bow came apart in one simple movement.

"Thank you," said Roddy, holding up the ribbon. "Where did you get it? This can't have been easy to find."

Rita took it from him gently. "Never mind about that. The ribbon…wasn't the point anyway."

Roddy was confused for a moment. "I'm sorry?"

Rita shook her head in exasperation. "This, Roddy, is what I meant about you being bad at reading signs." She leaned over and kissed him, pushing him back onto the bed with the same kind of gentle implacability that moves continents.

"I'm sorry if I scared you with that thing I did earlier," she said quietly.

"_If_ you scared me?"

"All right, I'm just sorry." She laughed.

"You don't need to be." Roddy stroked her hair back to keep it from falling into his face. "I'm sure I'll see the funny side of it in a decade or two."

Rita smiled. "Happy birthday, Roddy. Whenever it really is."

He grinned at her. "So who's on first watch tonight?"

"I think," said Rita, disconnecting the coloured lights with a yank, "That we can skip the first watch tonight."


	3. The Salvage Attempt

"_Siiiiiilent night, hoooooooly night,_

_Alllllllll is calm, allllllll is briiiight…"_

Roddy woke up slowly, in case what he remembered had been a dream. If it was, then he would have been happy never to wake again.

"_Round yon viiiiirgin mother and chillllld…"_

That rather broke the spell. He peered around, trying to locate the source of the music. A small chorus of sewer-slugs had materialised on the rail on the other side of the boat and were singing mournfully. They wore festively-coloured woollen caps and scarves and the apparent leader of the chorus had a small wooden box around its neck.

"I have to pay you to make you go away, is that the deal?" Roddy sat up, blinking myopically.

"_Hooooooly infant so tender and mild…"_

"That'll pass for a yes, then." Roddy stood up and noticed their plates from last night. His still had some food scraps left on it. How choosy could slugs be? He passed it over to them. The singing stopped and they began attacking the leftovers enthusiastically.

"It doesn't occur to you that singing the lyrics 'silent night' at the top of your voice is just a little ironic? No? Well, I guess not." The slugs finished and disappeared over the side again with a trio of splashes and not a single backward glance.

"No need to thank me," said Roddy, to the vacant space left behind. He realised that it was, indeed, still night. Street light was very different to sunlight and the sewer was still largely dark. He also realised that he was freezing cold. Roddy looked down and realized why. He grabbed up his Royal Navy trousers, donned them hastily, scrambled back into bed and pulled the blanket up to his chin. Then the realisation hit him.

"W'the…? Why're you awake?" Rita sat up beside him, squinting at him. She was wearing his white shirt and at some point had allowed her hair to fall out of its usual businesslike ponytail. It now resembled a haystack in a hurricane.

"I didn't mean to wake you," said Roddy, apologetically. "There were these slugs, you see. Singing ones."

"Singing?"

"_Silent Night_, ironically."

Rita nodded and settled back down. Under the covers, her hand touched Roddy's.

"How long had they been there?"

"Oh, not long, they were still in the first verse. So…not long enough to have seen anything, to answer the question you didn't ask." He smiled at her.

"That wasn't what I meant. I couldn't care less about that." Rita yawned and half-turned to face him.

"Even if your family knew? News travels fast down here." Roddy raised an eyebrow.

"My family has already assumed, Roddy, as if you didn't know that. They'd wonder why it took so long."

"It didn't take that long, did it?" said Roddy.

"It took long enough." Rita squeezed his hand affectionately. Roddy paused and replayed the recent exchange once or twice before realising something.

"Are we talking about the same thing? Because when I said 'it didn't take that long' I wasn't talking about-" He was cut off by Rita.

"Not that, Roddy, don't worry. When I asked how long they'd been there, I meant what time it is." She laughed.

Roddy shrugged. "It's still night. Still Christmas Eve. But it must be past midnight now."

Rita sat up and pulled the white shirt around her. "Well, we might as well keep moving since we're both awake. You get dressed while I put some water on to boil."

* * *

It was the night before Christmas, and all through the sewers it seemed that not a creature was stirring, except for the crew of the _Jammy Dodger II_, which proceeded slowly through the drains. It was unusual for it to be this quiet- underground, London was every bit the city it was Up Top and the eerie stillness was starting to get to Roddy. The _Jammy Dodger II_'s engine echoed off the walls and down the tunnel, the occasional backfire sounding like a gunshot. Still…it had been a night to remember. Roddy looked at the bundle of Christmas lights in the stern which Rita had unplugged and picked up the end of the cord.

"What are you doing?" Rita was watching him from the wheel.

"Just making light of the situation," said Roddy, clamping the alligator clip back in. A few of the lights flickered on, casting a rather feeble glow. Roddy frowned at them in disappointment.

"Not very bright, Roddy," said Rita, cheerfully.

"Some of them must have shorted out when we hit that live wire," said Roddy.

"The lights aren't up to much either," Rita went on.

Roddy paused to work this one out.

"You know, that joke reflex of yours really should be handled with more care," he said.

"I thought that one wasn't bad," said Rita, feigning an aggrieved sniff.

"It wasn't bad," said Roddy, joining her and putting a patronising arm around her shoulders. "Not _bad_ exactly. I'd have used a different word."

Rita looked sideways at him, an eyebrow raised questioningly.

"Calling that joke 'bad' is like calling Genghis Khan short-tempered." Roddy waved a hand.

"All right, I'll try to rein in my instincts. Not that you seemed to mind them last night!" Rita laughed and gave him a fond dig in the ribs.

"You mean _this_ night, don't you?" Roddy pointed to a grate as it passed overhead. It was still dark on the surface.

"Yeah, of course. Looks like we'll be home in time for Christmas with the family after all!" Rita smiled.

"The family…yes."

She looked over to Roddy, who had that awful pensive look on his face again.

"Roddy?"

"It's nothing," he said.

"Two rules in life, Roddy- never play poker against someone who smiles the whole time and never, _ever_ try to lie to me. Something's the matter and I want to know what it is." She took her hand off the wheel and placed it on Roddy's arm. "Whatever it is."

Roddy gave up. She could read him like a book and he knew it.

"Well, it's just that it's Christmas. It sort of…brings it home to me that so much has changed in my life. It reminds me of what I left behind."

"You don't…regret it…do you?" There was real fear in Rita's voice and Roddy quickly allayed it.

"No! Of course not. But I can't help thinking about it. I thought I had a family up there. Tabitha, the little girl, cared for me and I thought that was what it was all about."

Rita gave him a small smile. "I'm sure Sid can look after her."

They both laughed, thinking of Sid in Kensington.

"Yes. Yes, I suppose you're right." Roddy straightened his collar. "Of course you are."

"You say that as if you're surprised." Rita flicked his ear, pleased that the conversation was turning up again. Every time Roddy's past was mentioned, she got the feeling that they were circling a large, dark whirlpool and she didn't know how far down it could take them.

"Not _surprised_, exactly. I'd have used a different word." Roddy grinned.

"Watch yourself, first mate," said Rita. "Well, if you've got those lights working, we might as well rig them up again."

"So you're not planning to snagging any more live wires?" Roddy went and picked up the tangled cord.

"I'm not _planning_ to, no." Rita helped him thread the lights around the cockpit again. The result was less than impressive but at least it was in the spirit of the season.

"Well, it's the impulsive side of you that I admire most," said Roddy. "So if you see some more live wires we could steer into, don't hold yourself back."

"You admire my impulsive side?" said Rita, raising an eyebrow and grinning.

"Well…maybe not _admire _exactly. I'd have-"

"Used a different word?" finished Rita.

"Something like that." Roddy smiled and looked up. The end of the tunnel was brightly lit, glowing in all the colours of the rainbow.

* * *

Rita guided the boat alongside the pier, jockeying the thrusters every inch of the way until it touched with bump that wouldn't have registered on the best seismograph. Roddy had expected Ratropolis to be as it always was- crazy, busy, noisy and as full of activity as an ant nest. But it wasn't. Many of its canals were almost dry as a result of the new flows created by the Hyde Park closure and there was barely enough water in the dockside district for the _Dodger_ to pull up. The lights of the city were still on brightly, though, and every building was crowned with a multicoloured halo.

"My dad used to keep us quiet on Christmas Eve by telling us to listen for the sleigh bells," said Rita, trying the boat securely. "Then he'd walk up and down the stairs with a tambourine."

Roddy scanned the deserted city. "It sounds like everybody's taking his advice tonight. I never thought I'd see this place so empty!"

Rita straightened up and dusted her hands. "Well, we need to find someone who can tell us what the new currents have done. I'm not even sure if we can get to my parents' house any longer. Everything might have changed." She cast a glance up to the darkened control box near the mighty floodgates and shivered at her memories of that place.

They left the _Dodger_ by the pier and set off into the city, looking for someone- anyone- who could help them. Just off the main canal, a red bus was grounded and immobile in an inch of water, its driver asleep at the wheel and completely oblivious to Rita's hailing.

"Probably wouldn't have known anyway," she muttered, turning away. Roddy was staring at the lights again. Rita stared at him.

"Roddy?"

"…_Roderick, madam. Roddy for short. Roddy St. James."_ Roddy shook his head to clear the memory.

"Hmm?"

"You drifted off there for a moment." Rita took his arm gently.

"Well, at least I'm doing better than the bus," said Roddy, pointing to the grounded vehicle behind them. Rita shook her head and turned a corner into another street. Somewhere a radio was playing Christmas carols, but nobody was listening.

"Hello? Hello?" Roddy's voice echoed back off the buildings. Rita paused by a newspaper stand and looked at its bill posters in the hope that they'd carry some information- but they were brightly decorated with pictures of Father Christmas and were no help.

"Hello?"

They both stopped short and looked around to see where the answering voice had come from.

"Hello?" called Roddy, cautiously.

"You said that before!" called the other voice. A movement at the end of the street caught Rita's attention and she drew Roddy's attention to it. A rat was walking around, peering through windows and into alleys. It was a familiar figure.

"Hello, Bruce," said Rita. "I wasn't expecting to see you here!"

The Bruce looked up in surprise and grinned broadly.

"Stone the crows if it isn't everyone's favourite couple! I wasn't expecting to see you two here either!" The Australian shook their hands warmly. "You're both well? Bonzer."

"What on earth are you doing here?" said Rita.

"Don't you remember? Jasper said we'd fly out for Christmas. And here we are. Punctuality being as important as it is to him, although he's on something of an OH&S bender at present." Bruce rubbed his nose ruefully.

"Jasper's here as well? And Bruce?"

"Yeah, everyone's here," said Bruce. "Which turned out to be a bit lucky, you see, because your family needed our help, Rita. You see…it's your old man."

Rita's blood ran cold. "What's happened?"

Bruce waved a hand, realising what he'd said. "Nothing like that, nothing like that! He's okay. But when he heard that the humans were shutting down the Hyde Park treatment plant he got it into his head to do some salvage work there."

"Salvage?" said Roddy, curiously. "But there's nothing there to salvage is there?"

Rita worked it out first. "Oh yes there is- he's trying to recover the _Jammy Dodger_!"

"But we've got the _Jammy Dodger_ with us…it's down at the docks." Roddy was still confused.

"We've got the _Jammy Dodger II_ down at the docks," corrected Rita. "He's trying to salvage the first one…the one we lost on the way to Kensington."

The penny dropped. "Oh, right!" Roddy grinned. "So some good might come of this after all!"

Bruce nodded. "We've got quite a bit done, but we needed some supplies so old man Malone sent us into town."

"What do you mean 'us'?" Rita looked around, realising that the other Bruce wasn't there.

"Well, there's Jasper and Mr Malone back at the plant with Bruce," said Bruce. "So that left two of us."

"Two?"

"Rodders? Rita! Blimey, I never thought to see you two again!"

Roddy turned. Sid was standing behind them, beaming.

"Sid? What are you doing here?"

"Helping with the salvage, of course!" Sid hugged Roddy happily. "Wow is this is a coincidence! And Rita too, what a reunion this is! Remember the last time we three were all in one room?"

Roddy remembered it all too well. Trying to pass Sid off as his brother had been a desperate ploy which had backfired on him seriously when it turned out that Rita knew the cocky sewer rat personally.

"How could I forget…" he muttered.

"Well, this is a turnup isn't it?" said Sid. "Come on, Bruce, we'd better get these two back to their family! It'll be quite a Christmas with us all there together!"

* * *

"Why did you leave them?" asked Roddy. He and Sid were in the _Jammy Dodger II_'s stern as Rita steered it towards the Hyde Park plant.

"Leave who?" said Sid, who was picking his fingernails calmly.

"Up top! Tabitha? The little girl you said you'd look after?"

Sid paused and rolled his eyes skywards, thinking hard. Then he nodded.

"You know how it goes. You think you've got a nice life somewhere and all of a sudden- pow!- something drops in and messes it up completely!"

"I think I can appreciate the concept," said Roddy, with an irony that totally failed to register with Sid, who went on unabashed.

"So there I am, just enjoying pretending to be you, and then whatsername comes back from holiday with a big white cat!" Sid spread his arms to demonstrate the size. "Well, says I, that's not for Sid. No sir! So I wait until I have the chance to get away and I do."

"You ran away?" said Roddy, aghast.

Sid nodded proudly. "There wasn't room for me and the cat, Rodders. It was him or me. Besides, the humans won't have noticed."

"You think they won't notice that you disappeared?"

"Well, they didn't notice the fact that I replaced you, did they?" Sid slapped him on the back. "Never mind the humans, mate, they're old news. Sid is back where Sid belongs!"

Roddy looked down and tried to make sense of it. He probably should have known better than to trust an opportunist like Sid, but still…the sewer rat had made a promise and he'd broken it. And now Tabitha would have a Christmas without him…well, without a rat at least. Roddy looked up and reached a decision.

Rita was in the cockpit with the Bruce, who was eying the festive lights critically.

"You get hit by lightning or something, mate?" he said. "Only every third of these is working at all."

"A hot wire," said Rita. "Nothing serious. Roddy wouldn't agree though."

"So how's it going with you two?" said Bruce, tweaking one of the dead lights.

"He's fine," lied Rita.

"Glad to hear it," said Bruce. "Your dad'll be glad to see you again. And Jasper."

"How did you three get here? Where did you park the plane?" Rita remembered Jasper's model aircraft, the _Flying Malone_. It was a Lancaster bomber, wider than it was long. Good for flying, not so much for the sewers.

"In an outfall near some lake in Kensington Gardens," said Bruce. "We've modified it a bit especially for the journey here. Took us a while. I'd say it drove Jasper nuts if he wasn't already madder than a cut snake. We've modified it for VTOL. And before you say that it lets us 'drop in' on people, we've already told all the jokes."

Rita laughed. "How close are you to being able to salvage the _Dodger_?_"_

Bruce shrugged. "How long is a piece of string?" he asked rhetorically.

"Twice half it's length, of course," said Rita, grinning. "I thought it was destroyed completely. Do you even know if it's intact?"

"Yeah, well." Bruce scratched his head. "The water level's practically gone down, but refloating it'll be tricky."

Roddy joined them. "Sorry to interrupt. Rita, I was hoping I could have a word with you?"

"Sure," she said. "Go ahead."

"I meant…" Roddy glanced sideways at Bruce. "In private?"

* * *

Rita closed the hatch above them and turned back to Roddy, who was drumming his fingers on the engine casing anxiously.

"What is it, Roddy? Make it quick. I don't want Bruce at the helm any longer than medically necessary." She tried to sound flippant, but there was a shadow of concern behind her eyes.

"Well…it's Sid, you see." Roddy wrung his hands, trying to avoid Rita's gaze.

"Why would Sid concern you?" Rita smiled. It had been Roddy's misplaced jealousy of Sid and Rita that had first shown her his true feelings towards her, but she knew that this was different.

"It's not like last time," said Roddy. "It's…it'll sound stupid. I know I should have left that part of my life behind, but with Christmas and everything…it turns out I haven't. Not completely. And with Sid down here, well, that means that he's left the family who used to look after me."

Rita put her hands on his shoulders, afraid of where this might go.

"And, well…I think I'd just like to see them again. Just once more. So I can be sure." Roddy finished and looked miserably at the floor.

"You want to go back to Kensington?" said Rita hesitantly.

"Yes…just once. I'm so sorry to do this to you, Rita. I meant it when I said that I had no regrets about moving down here with you. But…I left something behind up there. And I've only now realised it."

Rita hugged him and tried not to let her worry show.

"It's all right, Roddy. I understand. I'll take you back there, I promise. We'll go today."

Roddy looked up in surprise. "Don't you want to see your family first?"

"You're part of my family now, Roddy," said Rita firmly. "Besides, I can't have you moping about. Grandma would be so disappointed."

Roddy managed a faint smile.

"I wish I could explain this to you. I really do. It must seem so stupid to you. I must seem so stupid for bringing it up."

Rita hugged him again.

"I wish I could convince you that it doesn't, and you don't. I remember what your place Up Top was like. It can't have been easy leaving it. I'll take you back there." She smiled bravely. "And this time we don't have Le Frog or Spike on our tails and we don't have to worry about being sucked into the Hyde water plant."

Roddy finally met her eyes. "It'll be a walk in the park," he said weakly.

* * *

It was mid-morning by the time they reached Hyde Park. Things had certainly changed since the humans had shut it down for repairs. The ferocious current which had snatched the first _Jammy Dodger_ and thrown it about like a feather was no longer there and Rita brought the second _Jammy Dodger_ alongside the walls easily. A set of steel doors, every bit the equal of the Ratropolis floodgate, had been closed across the tunnel to keep things from entering the deactivated plant- but someone had found a way. A small stepladder led to an even smaller hole which had rusted through the metal.

"About time you two got back!"

Mr Malone was waiting impatiently. He had finally got rid of the bandages and plasters, although he was walking with a noticeable limp.

"Sorry, mate," said Bruce apologetically. "Look who we found!"

"Hello, dad," said Rita, jumping down from the cockpit.

Mr Malone blinked once or twice.

"Rita? Is that you, girl?"

"Last time I checked it was," said Roddy, following her.

"Roddy? Rita and Roddy, well this is a surprise!" Mr Malone greeted them warmly, hugging his daughter and shaking hands with Roddy. "We weren't expecting you back!"

"You can't get rid of us that easily, dad," said Rita fondly. "We thought we'd better be back for Christmas. We just got back to the city when we met Bruce and Sid."

"We had to send someone," said Jasper. "Hello again, you two. Rather happier circumstances than last time thank heavens!"

Rita risked a glance over to Roddy. She hoped so.

"Hello, uncle. You're as good as your word."

"Have you been back to visit your mother?" asked Mr Malone.

"Not yet, dad, we just came by to drop off Bruce and Sid. Then we were going to-" Rita began.

"Good! So you've got time to survey the works!" Jasper led them enthusiastically up the ladder and through the gate before Rita or Roddy could object.

The Hyde Park Purification Plant was dark and eerily silent, a sheer-sided cylindrical drop barely illuminated by the light coming down the chimney far above. The pipe which the first _Jammy Dodger_ had hung from was still there, accessible by a distressingly thin rope bridge. A makeshift crane, cable dangling into the depths below, was attached to the pipe with a series of heavy pins. The whole assembly looked profoundly unsafe to Roddy, but he held his tongue.

"Impressive, eh?" said Mr Malone. "I knew you'd like it. Any day now we'll have the old thing up and about again."

"I'm already up and about," said Jasper defensively.

Mr Malone rolled his eyes, to general laughter. The noise attracted the attention of Number Two Bruce, who was sitting on the crane making an adjustment with a wrench. Bruce One waved across to him.

"How's it going, mate?"

"Good, mate! Don't tell me that's-"

"The very same, mate!"

"Can't seem to keep away from you two!" called Bruce Two to Roddy and Rita.

"Just make sure you don't fall off that!" shouted back Jasper. "Safety first, remember!"

Mr Malone shook his head and turned back to his daughter. "Sorry about that, Rita. What was it you were saying before? You were just dropping off Sid and Bruce and then what?"  
"Well, then we were going…somewhere else." Rita knew her father probably wouldn't approve of a return trip to Kensington.

"We? You mean you and Roddy?" Mr Malone scratched his nose.

"Yes, dad." Rita sighed, wondering what kind of innuendo was coming.

"I only ask because…" Mr Malone gestured. Rita realised there was a Roddy-shaped space beside her. She turned and saw his tail disappearing through the gate.


	4. Things from the Past

Rita watched aghast as Roddy vanished.

"I'll be back to help as soon as I can, Dad!" she promised quickly before taking off after her companion, leaving her father and the others slightly bemused.

"Roddy! Where do you think you're going?"

Roddy paused as he boarded the _Jammy Dodger II_. Rita vaulted the rail and landed next to him, glaring.

"I was…just going to get my things ready," he invented, desperately.

"You were trying to leave without me!"

"No I wasn't! I was…" He floundered.

"Trying to leave without me?" suggested Rita, tapping her foot. Roddy gave up. Rita's tail was flicking from side to side as well, and under those circumstances it was safer and easier to yield painlessly.

"All right, you caught me. I'm sorry. You just seemed to be busy with your father and I thought I might be able to make a start."

"Why would you try to leave by yourself? You might not be able to make it alone." Rita watched him, nervousness overcoming her initial anger.

"Well, it was because…it was because…" Roddy trailed off. _It was because having you there will make this harder than it already is!_ But he couldn't bring himself to say it. He stood there in silence until Rita took pity on him.

"Prepare to cast off, then," she said. "We'll have to get going."

They prepared the boat in silence. As the engine fired up and Rita began reversing into the tunnel, her father came bowling through the hole in the gate, waving his hands frantically.

"Wait! Wait! I've got something important to tell you!"

Rita cut the engine and gunned the reverse thrusters hard, throwing Roddy off-balance.

"What is it, Dad?" she called. Sid clambered through the gate and joined Mr Malone.

"Wait! Wait! I've got something important to tell you!"

"I've already done that part, Sid," said Mr Malone. "But thanks for helping. Rita, didn't you notice that the city was empty?"

"Yes?"

"Didn't that strike you as odd?" said Mr Malone.

"Well, we assumed it was because it was Christmas Eve," said Roddy.

"No such luck!" shouted Sid. "Think about it, Rita! With this place out of commission-" he jerked his thumb at the plant behind him- "all the currents that stop boats from getting Up Top will be gone!"

Rita stared as she worked it out. "Everyone's gone Up Top for Christmas?"

"Everyone with a boat or a will to swim!" shouted Mr Malone. "The humans are going six kinds of bonkers! They think it's a plague!"

Roddy joined Rita at the helm. "That could make things difficult," he said.

"The City's called in ratcatchers!" yelled Sid. "They're trying to hunt everything with a tail!"

"Do you want to turn back?" said Roddy to Rita. "This isn't your problem. If you want to stay-"

"Where you go, I go," said Rita, taking his hand below the cockpit wall. She waved back to Sid and her father. "Thanks for the warning! Good luck with the salvage!" She opened the throttle and the engine drowned out her father's objections.

Roddy looked at the maps as they motored back into the main drains.

"It's a lot different from last time. We never actually worked out how to get back to my place…I mean, my old place, by boat. We ended up arriving by air mail."

"Maybe we should have asked Jasper to fly us," said Rita.

"No, I think _arriving_ is the important part."

"What happened to the journey being the best bit?" Rita smiled.

"People who say that have never flown Air Jasper," said Roddy. "Look, Rita, really. You don't have to risk coming with me. If there's ratcatchers up there we could end up in great danger."

"Oh, yeah. Because that's never happened to us before," said Rita, rolling her eyes jokingly. "Not another word on the matter Roddy. Or I'll throw you overboard and go to Kensington myself."

* * *

The _Flying Malone_ was indeed in an outfall drain near the park lake and it had indeed been modified. The Lancaster's four mighty engines had been rebuilt into two nacelles closer to the main fuselage, one propeller facing astern and one forward on each wing in push-me-pull-you style. This had allowed the immense wings to be fitted with hinges, which enabled them to be folded up and over the fuselage and thus making the seaplane narrow enough to fit into the pipe- barely.

"At some point they're just going to end up replacing the whole thing," said Roddy, looking at it. Rita, whose eyes were more mechanically aware, noticed something more interesting. Part of the Lancaster's underbelly had been removed and was replaced with a dull gunmetal cylinder. The dorsal fuselage over that part had also been modified- it was still RAF black-and-tan coloured but it was hinged as if concealing something.

"I wonder what that could be?" she said speculatively.

"Whatever it is, I want to be a long way away when they switch it on," said Roddy firmly.

Rita crossed her arms. "You could show a little more trust in Jasper's engineering. He saved your tail on Burhou, remember?"

"You mean _over_ Burhou, when he very nearly took it off, right?" said Roddy, remembering his midair confrontation with the Toad. "And for the record, it isn't Jasper I don't trust, it's Bruce."

"Which Bruce?"

"Any Bruce."

They turned into the current again and sailed out onto the Kensington Gardens lake. Patchy clouds obscured a pale winter sun. Rita shaded her eyes with her hand as she gauged the wind.

"Are you sure we can get to your place from here?"

"We need to cross the lake," said Roddy. "This is the quickest way. Why do you ask?"

"Because it's daylight and anybody looking at the lake can see us." Rita had survived as long as she had by knowing that discretion was often the better part of not being killed. She didn't like being in the open.

"I don't think the ratcatchers will have snipers on the rooftops," said Roddy.

"I'm not worried about the ratcatchers," said Rita. She pointed to something out on the lake. Roddy followed her finger. At first he thought it was another boat, a large white one- and then the 'boat' raised an enormous head and regarded them with a suspicious yellow eye.

"It's a pelican!" he said. "I didn't think they'd still be here in winter!"

"Exhibit-A there should answer that," said Rita. "That thing looks like it could swallow this whole boat in one go. Look at that beak!"

Roddy was trying not to. "Well, it'll have a nasty surprise if it does," he said.

"I don't want to think about what it could do before realising that," said Rita meaningfully. "Are you sure this is the safest way?"

"I didn't say it was the safest way, I said it was the quickest." Roddy sat down and watched the pelican, which had gone back to ignoring them with majestic distain.

"That's a distinction you need to pay more attention to," said Rita. "Keep an eye on the featherbed over there. If it so much as twitches in our direction, I'm getting us out of here."

Roddy nodded and kept an eye on the pelican, which had turned away and was investigating something over by the bank.

"See? There's no danger there." He sat back and turned to the maps again.

A shadow passed overhead. Roddy looked up and swallowed nervously.

"Up there, on the other hand…there might be _some_ danger…"

Rita looked up and cursed.

"Two pelicans! How can there be two?"

"Apparently quite easily!" said Roddy. The second pelican turned gracefully and came in for landing. It touched down just ahead of the _Jammy Dodger II_ and regarded the approaching boat with the kind of stupidity that only birds can muster. The great bird's landing had thrown up a powerful ripple in the water, and the _Dodger_ bucked violently. Roddy was thrown out of his chair and banged his nose against the control panel, activating the mechanical arm which shot out of its silo and punched the pelican square in the face. It sat there for a moment, cross-eyed, and trying to figure out what had just happened. Pelicans think slowly, but its instincts told it that sitting around in an environment that threw punches like that was not a good idea. It took off hurriedly, splattering the _Jammy Dodger II_ with water.

"Good work!" said Rita appreciatively. "I think you took it by surprise!"

"It's not the only one," said Roddy, rubbing his nose tenderly. He stood up and looked around. Maybe they'd get away with the lake crossing anyway! Then he realised that he'd lost sight of the first pelican.

"Um, Rita?"

The sun was blocked out and the boat was almost swamped by a sudden wave. Rita was thrown sideways into Roddy and the pair slammed into the side of the cockpit. Rita scrambled to her feet and stared into the mad yellow eyes of the first pelican, which had just landed beside them. It opened its beak and water rushed into the cavern. Rita felt the boat begin sliding into the flow and she made a lunge for the controls. The engines roared as she slammed the throttle wide open and the pelican swallowed a mouthful of water and exhaust fumes.

"Eat that!" she shouted ecstatically. "You came and had a go, but you weren't fast enough! Hahaha!"

Roddy, who had been thrown back on to the main deck by the sharp acceleration, got to his feet and joined her triumphant laugh.

That was when the second pelican swooped low over the deck and grabbed him in its webbed feet. He was borne skywards as the great white and black bird flapped furiously.

"This can't be happening twice!" he shouted in frustration, flailing at it.

Rita gasped and brought the mechanical arm around as fast as she could. It grabbed onto Roddy's foot just as the pelican tried to carry him beyond her reach. The bird was still strong, however, and it began dragging the _Jammy Dodger II_ along behind it as it fought for height.

"This isn't very comfortable, Rita!" shouted Roddy, who was caught between the boat and the bird.

Rita looked around desperately and threw the engines into full reverse. The sudden yank made Roddy cry out in pain, but it brought the pelican crashing back to the lake with a splash that soaked Rita to the skin. Roddy surfaced, spluttering, still in the grip of the mechanical arm.

"Hold on, Roddy!" Rita swung the arm around and dropped him back on board. She activated the boat's thrusters again and executed the nautical equivalent of a handbrake turn before accelerating forward, steering them back towards the _Flying Malone_'s outfall. Behind her, a second splash indicated the second pelican had tried a dive attack and come to watery grief.

Rita brought them to a stop as soon as they were safely inside the drain. Her wake made the _Flying Malone_ bob sharply and the folded wings banged off the drain roof. Breathing a sigh of relief, she turned back to Roddy who was lying in the stern.

"Are you all right?" she asked, still breathing hard.

"Give me a moment…I'm…pretty sure I'm all here." Roddy patted himself to check that everything was still attached. "That sort of thing shouldn't happen to a chap twice…there should be a law."

"Well, you were complaining about how Jasper rescued you the last time that happened," said Rita, helping him up. "So I thought I'd show you how I do things."

"I'm starting to regret what I said about Jasper," said Roddy ruefully. "Is it just me or am I a little bit taller? I feel like a spaghetti noodle."

"This is hardly the time to get hungry," said Rita, severely.

"No, I mean _I _feel like a spaghetti noodle." Roddy arched his back and winced. "Thank you, by the way. For saving me. Again."

"Make sure it doesn't happen again, that's all I ask," said Rita, putting on a façade of bravado to cover up the anxiety she had felt. That had come too close for comfort. "I guess we'll have to find another way back to your street. Get the maps out and we'll see where the drains lead."

* * *

Mr Malone peered over the edge of the salvage platform, which he had put together out of icy pole sticks and staples. Steel cables were tied to each corner, meeting in the air above the centre of the platform before running up to the crane.

"Water level's gone down a bit, hasn't it?" he said.

Bruce One nodded. "It has, that. And look, it's still dropping." He pointed to the water level, which was falling away as the Hyde Park Treatment Plant drained itself. Bruce Two dropped a lead and line over the edge.

"Six feet left!" he shouted. Not long now!"

Mr Malone looked up and cupped his hands around his mouth.

"Did you hear that, Jasper? Sid?" he called.

"Six feet it is sah!" said Sid, who was sitting at the crane's controls being supervised closely by Jasper. The old mechanic was buffing the control panel with a piece of sponge.

Mr Malone looked down again and realised that the platform was tipping alarmingly beneath him. He looked to his left and saw the Bruces had joined him.

"Get back, will you? You'll overbalance us and we'll all go in!" He waved them back. They retreated to the centre.

"What's the problem, mate? I thought the water was cool now." Bruce One asked.

"It is, but the chemical content will still be high enough to turn you white!" said Mr Malone, pointing to the water.

"It's that frightening?" said Bruce Two, curiously, peering through a gap in the platform boards.

Mr Malone sighed. "I mean it'll _literally_ turn you white. That's not stuff you play around with under any circumstances. You know what Jasper always says about safety?"

"Safety first," intoned the Bruces, in despairing unison.

"That's right," said Mr Malone. "And I say it too." He nodded to them pointedly and looked over the side. Shapes were emerging from the water, dripping. A frisson of excitement ran through Mr Malone's body as he recognised a mechanical hand, frozen forever in a permanent wave.

"_Jammy_? Is that you?" he whispered, almost overcome with feeling for his old boat.

"No, it's Bruce," said Bruce Number One.

"I'm talking to the boat!" snapped Mr Malone.

"Because that makes perfect sense," said Bruce Number Two.

"There's nothing you can do about them!" called down Jasper. "They're chronic! I told you about them!"

The Bruces looked up. "No need for that, mate! Fair go!"

A piece of wet sponge dropped from the crane platform and hit Bruce One in the face with a splatter.

"Sorry!" called Jasper happily. "Lost my grip there for a moment!"  
"He's lost his grip all right," muttered Bruce One, wiping his eyes.

"What happened to safety first?" shouted Bruce Two.

"There's an exception to every rule!" replied Jasper.

Muttering various imprecations, the Bruces went to opposite sides of the salvage platform and looked down as the last of the water drained away. The bottom of the treatment plant was strewn with debris carried in by the drains, but most of it had been hard-boiled into a pulpy mess of unrecognisable constituency. Only one thing was clearly identifiable- a boat, or what once had been. Months immersed in boiling, chlorinated water had not done it much good. Every surface was a bleached white as if all the colour had been sucked from it, but there was no mistaking the name on the stern.

"It's the _Jammy Dodger_," said Mr Malone, tears in his eyes. "Lads, if you knew half of what I've been through in that tub. Me and Rita…all those years of prospecting…" He smiled and shook his head to clear the memory. He called up to Sid again.

"Move us over a bit! Two points left!"

The platform jerked away from the derelict ship and Bruce One was forced to make a grab for his companion's feet as he fell over the edge.

"The other left, mate! The other left!" he screamed.

Sid scratched his head. "Do you mean _stage_ left or what?" he said.

Jasper heaved a sigh and reached past him for the controls. The platform moved and positioned itself over the _Dodger_'s after deck.

"Down a bit!" called Mr Malone.

The platform rose fractionally, and then plunged down with a clatter of wood. It crunched into the battered tyre at the back of the wrecked boat and tipped sideways, spilling its three passengers onto the white-bleached deck.

"Down a bit," muttered Bruce Two, getting to his feet. "Down like a lead balloon, more like."

Bruce One rolled out from under the platform and moaned. Mr Malone stood up, rubbing his elbow and looked around.

"We're on board! We're on board Jasper!" he shouted.

"Good show!" The reply floated down.

The Bruces stood up and joined Mr Malone, who was beaming from ear to ear.

"Now what do we do, mate?" asked Number One.

Mr Malone touched a railing fondly. "We'll have to check her out. Make sure she's still in one piece. Then we'll figure out a way to get her attached to the crane so we can bring her out."

"No worries," said Bruce the First. "I'll check out the engine, shall I?"

Mr Malone shook his head. "No, we should check the hull first. Engines are nice but you've got to float to use 'em. This isn't a submarine, lads."

"Contrary to appearances," said Bruce Two, innocently. Mr Malone ignored the remark.

"I wish Rita was here to see it. And I'm pretty sure young Roddy would like to see it as well."

"I think they're seeing enough of each other," said Bruce One, who was assessing the hull's integrity by kicking it repeatedly.

"Oh, I hope so. They're so good together," said Mr Malone. "Reminds me of me and the wife when we was their age. Anyway, enough of that. I'm sure they'll be fine."

"Speaking of the wife," said Bruce. "It's Christmas Day now. Shouldn't you be getting back to the family?"

Mr Malone shook his head. "They know I'm here. There's no telling when we'll have the opportunity to finish the salvage."

"Jasper's here too," pointed out Bruce Two.

"If that's an advantage," said Bruce One, before ducking under the cover of the _Jammy Dodger_'s roof.

"And Sid's on the crane," went on Bruce Two.

"I'm staying," said Mr Malone firmly. "We're going to finish this today. We may not get another chance."

* * *

Rita looked up at the grate. One of its bars had rusted through, opening up a rat-sized hole. She stopped the _Jammy Dodger II_ underneath it and telescoped the mechanical arm up to it as a ladder.

"This is as close as we get," she said to Roddy. "If your maps are right we should be just a street or two away."

Roddy looked up and shaded his eyes from the daylight. "Is it safe to leave the boat here?" he asked.

"Safer than the lake," said Rita.

"A nuclear testing range would be safer than the lake," said Roddy, shivering and wringing out his sleeve. "Sorry about that. I shouldn't have plotted the course across it."

"It was worth trying, Roddy," said Rita comfortingly. "Sometimes, in life, you have to take a chance."

Roddy nodded. "Well…do you want to take this one together?"

"Always."

They scrambled up the arm and through the grate. They were on the edge of a road and had to dart across the footpath into the cover of a hedge. Roddy peered out and tried to work out where he was.

"Okay, we are quite close," he said. "It's only a couple of houses away. My mapreading must be better than even I thought!"

Rita snorted.

"I'll pretend that didn't happen," said Roddy. "Let's go. And stay low."

"_You're_ telling me how to move stealthily?" said Rita, amused. She set off after him.

Ducking and weaving between the shelter of the hedge and the gutter, they made their way down the street until Roddy recognised his old house number. A small plastic Christmas tree glowed in the window and a wreath hung on the door, resplendent in green, red and gold.

"This is it," he said quietly. Rita joined him.

"Now we've just got to get inside," she said. "I guess the front door's not an option?"

Roddy pointed to an air duct just below the footpath level. "We can get in through there. I found that ages ago. It was a useful way in and out."

"You went out?" Rita was surprised. It was hard for her to imagine anyone leaving the luxurious flat.

"Not really, but it would have been useful if I did." Roddy heaved the grate aside and stepped into the duct. Rita followed. It came out under the house, a wide, low wooden-roofed space broken up by foundation pillars, floor joists and the pipes and wires carrying water and power to the flat. Roddy walked along in silence, counting the pillars, until he paused under one.

"This is it," he said. "This is under the old room where I used to live." He looked up at the cobweb-dusted plank and drew a deep breath.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Rita put her hands on his shoulders and was stunned at how tense he was. She flexed her fingers, trying to relax him. Roddy closed his eyes and fought down the temptation to let her continue. This was exactly why he had tried to give her the slip- her presence would only confuse him further and he felt guilty for knowing it.

"No. No, I'm sorry. This last bit…this last bit has to be mine." He stepped away from her and opened an access hatch in the central heating duct. Roddy ducked inside, and was gone.

Rita watched him go and sighed. Whatever happened now, it was Roddy's decision. Coming back to Kensington had been as dangerous as it had been the first time, but she couldn't help feeling that the critical part was yet to come. She brushed aside some cobwebs and sat down on a half-buried brick to take in her surroundings. Then she noticed that there were some new-looking objects down here- little cardboard cylinders had been placed between the floor joists on either side of her. They were all connected with what looked like string, which disappeared out into the back garden.

Rita looked at them curiously, and wondered what they were.


	5. Fate and Flying Machines

Mr Malone pulled the cable towards himself and tried to tie it onto the front of the _Jammy Dodger's _bows. It was just short and he sighed. Behind him, the Bruces had tied similar cables to the port and starboard rails, which seemed strong enough to take the boat's weight.

"Can't you give me some slack?" he said. "I just need a little more."

"You reckon we can't just lift it as is?" asked Bruce One.

"Ask Jasper," said Mr Malone.

Number Two Bruce hollered up the shaft. "Hoi! What are the odds of doing a two-point lift on this thing?"

There was a pause before Sid's voice floated back down.

"He says Scotland'll win the World Cup before you should try that!"

The Bruces looked at each other and then to Mr Malone.

"Not good, then," concluded Number One.

Mr Malone raised an eyebrow and nodded. "It's three points or nothing. Four for preference but I know we can't do that."

"There's some cable down in the engine room," said Bruce One. "I found it down there while I was looking for stuff."

Mr Malone shook his head. "Can't use that. It's been in the water for too long, it'll have been damaged too badly."

"Well, I'm out of ideas, then," said Bruce. "Unless…"

"Yes?" Mr Malone looked at him.

"Well…we could always dismantle the salvage platform. That'll give us enough cable to do an eight-point lift." Bruce looked doubtful.

"It would," said Mr Malone. "But then we'd have to be standing on the boat when we hoist it. And I ain't that stupid."

"It's the only way," said Bruce Two. "Unless you tie the cable to the cockpit roof."

"Nope. Got to be the hull," Mr Malone shook his head. "If anything goes wrong we'd tear the roof off and lose the boat as well."

The Bruces shrugged. Mr Malone paused for a moment, deep in thought.

"All right," he said reluctantly. "Dismantle the platform. And then hope that the hull really is intact. I don't want to live to regret this."

"I dunno if this counts as a bright side," said Bruce One helpfully. "But if the hull _isn't_ intact we probably won't live long enough to regret anything."

Mr Malone glared.

"Yeah. Not a bright side, really." Bruce backed off. "I'll…get onto the platform, then."

* * *

Roddy looked out of the floor vent and breathed a sigh of relief. There was nobody there. He could hear conversation in one of the other rooms, but there was nobody in this one- and better yet, no sign of the cat which Sid had warned him about. He scrambled out and looked up at the table on which the cage- his cage- had stood. It was still there, glittering and golden. Roddy clambered up behind it and touched the bars, emotion crowding his mind. 

"Hello," said a voice. "Who are you?"

Roddy opened his eyes. He was being addressed by a rat wearing a dressing gown and slippers. The newcomer was leaning on the staircase railing inside the cage and regarding him with interest.

"My name's Roddy," said Roddy.

"Funny," said the other rat. "So's mine. Well, actually it's Gerald but everyone here calls me Roddy. Not sure why, but as you can see, I've nothing to complain about."

Roddy was nonplussed. Sid had replaced him. Obviously this Gerald had replaced Sid. How could Tabitha not have noticed the fact that she had seen three different rats?

"How long have you been here?" asked Roddy.

Gerald joined him at the bars and shrugged lazily.

"Couple of days. They bought me in a bit of a hurry. Like they had to replace someone or something. That happens, you know. Humans are so stupid they can't tell the difference between us so when one of us dies or runs away, they just replace us." He didn't seem concerned by this statement.

Roddy blinked. It had to be true. "And the cat?"

"Oh, that furball? Easy enough to live with. I don't bother it, it doesn't bother me." Gerald shrugged again. "If that's the price to pay to live here, I'm happy to pay it. Look at this place. It's a palace. Wouldn't you?"

"No," said Roddy, firmly. His mind was made up. He'd come back, risked his life- risked Rita's life too, he guiltily reminded himself- to see whether he was being missed only to find that he had been replaced- again! The indignity was almost physically painful.

"Cheer up," said Gerald, "It's Christmas after all."

"That's the point," said Roddy, half to himself. "I'm sorry for intruding. I'll…just be going then."

"No problem, Roddy," said Gerald. He waved casually and went back upstairs.

Roddy dropped back into the ducts and wandered along, lost in thought and shame. This had been his whole world once. The humans had been his family. And they hadn't even noticed that he was gone. He was a fool for thinking he had to come back- no, that wasn't true. He was a fool for telling himself that he had to come back for any reasons that weren't his own. He wasn't Roddy St. James of Kensington any longer. That, he saw now, had always been a convenient lie. One he had told to himself- and to Rita. Poor Rita. What had he put her through to get here? And what could she think of him now that he had been so stupid? His selfishness had almost cost them both everything. Roddy sagged against the wall, tears of shame and futility coming into his eyes. With nobody around to see him, Roddy St. James slumped to the floor, lost track of time, and began to cry.

"So that's it, sir,"

He looked up at the voice and wiped his nose. It came from above him, through a vent. A human voice, but not one of the family.

"They've been laid?" That was the father.

"Yes, sir! Twenty of the finest fumigation bombs money can buy. When they go off, nothing survives. Money back guarantee." A man in blue overalls was speaking.

"Good," said the mother. "It's a shame, having to fumigate the place on Christmas Day. But needs must with the rat plague the way it is. When can we come back?"

"Three days," said the stranger. "Just to be sure. That stuff's as bad for humans as it is for rats!"

"Oh, that reminds me! Tabitha, did you remember to get Roddy? We can't leave him behind!"

There were footsteps going into the room Roddy had just left.

"It's not a big deal anyway. We've been staying at her cousin's place ever since they shut off the water supply here." The father sounded resigned.

"Oh, that'd be the Hyde Park maintenance work?" said the man.

"That's right. Damnably inconvenient at this time of year but I suppose it has to be done some time."

"It'll be fixed soon," said the blue-dressed man. "My brother's a plumber with the Water Board. He says they'll be able to bring it back on-stream tonight."

Tabitha returned carrying the golden cage. Gerald noticed Roddy watching from the floor vent and waved.

"Got him, Mother!" said Tabitha.

"And the cat's in the car already," said the father. "We're all set. Let's go, shall we?"

"I'll light the fuse," said the stranger.

"Thank you," said the father. "And who should I make the cheque out to?"

"K&E Pest Control," said the man. "Kingston and Ewart, to be precise."

"Then that's who it'll be," said the father. "We'll just head outside." The family left. The man took a last look around the kitchen and then went out towards the back garden whistling tunelessly.

It took Roddy a couple of seconds to realise what was about to happen. The ratcatchers Sid had warned them about! They were here! How much worse could his luck get? He stood up, eyes dry, and looked around frantically. He had taken a wrong turn while he was blinded by his tears and had lost track of where he was. He knew only one thing- he had to warn Rita before it was too late.

* * *

Rita was kicking around a ringpull she had found, thankful for the distraction. She picked it up and twirled it around her finger expertly before hurling it, discus-style, into a far corner. She wandered over to the nearest of the cardboard cylinders and rapped on it with her knuckles. It was solid all right, and it smelled terrible. Rita wrinkled her nose against the chemical tang. 

Above her, a door slammed at the front of the house. A car started up and pulled away. A second door slammed at the back of the house. There was a distant hissing sound, and the noise of human footsteps hurrying away. Rita stepped out from behind the cylinder and looked around. There was a small column of smoke working its way down the string connecting the cylinders.

"Rita! We've got to get out of here! Now!" Roddy barrelled out of the vents, clearly on the verge of panic.

"What? What's going on?" Rita ran towards him as he stopped at the brick.

"The ratcatchers! They're here!"

"The ones Sid was on about?" Rita's eyes widened.

"Yes! And they've planted poison bombs around the house and they're about to set them off! They'll light the fuse any moment! Come on!" Roddy pulled at her arm. Rita looked behind them.

"You mean…that fuse?"

Roddy looked and spotted the column of smoke as well.

"Yes...that fuse."

Rita looked at the cylinders with a sick feeling. "And...those poison bombs?"

Roddy studied them for a moment.

"This," he said, with the careful calmness of those about to die, "Is unfair on so many levels."

The column of smoke reached the first cylinder. A heartbeat later there was a small flash of flame, a bigger puff of black smoke and a detonation so loud that Rita was sure her eardrums would burst. She ducked instinctively and Roddy dropped to the ground. They helped each other up as the second fumigation bomb went off.

"Let's go!"

They ran together as more explosions went off behind them, kicking up dirt and throwing scraps of stone and cardboard around like shrapnel. Rita chanced a glance backwards and saw the underfloor was filling with roiling smoke. The cloud reached out to choke them as they ran. The stench of poison was overpowering and she fought to avoid retching. Another bomb went off, practically beside her, and the blast threw her aside like a doll.

"Rita!" Roddy stopped and ran back to her, trying to hold his shirt over his nose in a futile defence against the chemical smoke. The fumigation bombs on the other side of the house began going off, removing the immediate danger of explosions but accelerating the far worse danger of choking. Roddy began pulling at Rita, trying to get her up.

"Just go!" she choked. "Leave me! Go or we both die!" She tried to push him away.

"I've made enough mistakes today already!" Roddy draped her arm over his shoulders. "I'm not going to make another! We go together, that's what you always say!" He coughed. His eyes were streaming with tears again. Every breath made him feel as if his lungs were on fire and he resisted an urge to drop to his knees and be sick. In this atmosphere, any delay would be fatal- if they weren't dead already. He cursed himself for bringing them to this place again. There was nothing but pain here.

Gasping for air, they staggered through the gathering darkness.

* * *

Jasper watched the Bruces and Mr Malone working far below. 

"They've dismantled the platform," he said.

"Well, it got them the cable they needed," said Sid, who was eating something peacefully.

"That's not the point. Safety first, remember? They're relying on the boat to hold, and the boat's been in boiling water for months already! I'll be amazed if it even floats. And I helped build it here, I'm not some bum off the streets." Jasper wagged a finger severely.

Sid shrugged. "Well, they know what they're doing."

Far below, Bruce Number One tugged on a cable speculatively.

"Do we know what we're doing?" he asked.

"No," said Bruce Two.

"Speak for yourself," said Mr Malone. "Well, we've got our eight-point lift set up. Now we just have to try it out."

He went to the central cable and yanked on it twice.

"Ready to hoist!" he shouted up the shaft.

Sid saluted and kicked a lever. The crane began winding the cable back in, pulling it tight and straining to lift it.

"It's working!" shouted Mr Malone as the keel was pulled free of the compacted mess at the shaft bottom. "It's working!" He laughed and waved joyously as the Bruces high-fived. The hull creaked as it took its own weight, but it held and the _Jammy Dodger_ began its long ascent.

* * *

Rita rolled over, propped herself up on her elbows, and was violently sick into the gutter. Her eyes felt as if they'd been used as pincushions and as for her throat- even the most sand-clogged engine couldn't feel this bad… 

Her memory kicked into action and replayed the last few seconds to her. Roddy had run back to save her, even as the exploding bombs filled the air with poison…Roddy had saved her

She sat up and looked around. Roddy was draped over the edge of the gutter a little way off, looking decidedly green.

"If this is heaven," he groaned. "It wasn't worth the trouble of dying."

"I don't think we're dead," said Rita hoarsely. She swallowed twice to try to moisten her mouth again. "I think…you just saved us both."

Roddy rolled over and looked back at the house. Smoke was still issuing from the vent they had escaped out of.

"Oh…I did? Good show…" He sat up and put a hand to his head painfully. His own memory flickered into life and he remembered the conversation he had overheard between the humans.

"_My brother's a plumber with the Water Board. He says they'll be able to bring it back on-stream tonight."_

Panic seized him again. He shot to his feet and pulled Rita up quickly.

"There's no time! We've got to get back to your father!"

"What? Why?" Rita shook her head and followed Roddy as he ducked back down into the drains. By the time she clambered down the mechanical arm, Roddy was already preparing the _Jammy Dodger II_ for departure.

"I heard them talking about it up there," explained Roddy, gunning the engines. "The Hyde Park Treatment Plant is going to be turned back on tonight! It could happen any minute and everyone in it will be killed for sure!"

Rita's face was a picture of horror. "Dad's in there!"

"Yes!" Roddy turned them into the current and opened the throttle. Rita pushed him aside and took the wheel.

"In that case," she said firmly, "_I'll_ do the piloting." She turned the wheel.

"You're going the wrong way!" Roddy pulled at her frantically. "You're going back to the lake! The plant is the other way!"

"I know!" snapped Rita. "We're not going to save them in this thing!"

"What else is there?" Roddy stared at her and remembered. There was the _Flying Malone_…but only Jasper could fly that.

"I can fly it," said Rita. "He showed me how in Monaco when we were chasing you and the Mafia. I know what to do. It's our only chance. Once they bring the plant back on-stream all the currents will go back to normal and we won't be able to get near them in a boat without going over the rapids again!"

Of course. Only Rita could have put together a plan like that in so little time.

"But coming from the air is impossible!" said Roddy. "There's that chimney stack. The plane's too wide to fly down it!"

"Only if its wings are out," said Rita, calmly.

"You want to fly it _without_ wings?"

"You remember that cylinder we saw attached to it before? And the dorsal hatches? I think I know what they are now!"

* * *

Mr Malone was practically dancing around the deck. The Bruces were watching him curiously. 

"Madder than a frog in a sock," said Bruce One.

"Madder than six of 'em," said Bruce Two. He looked up. The ascent was slow going, but that was to be expected. The boat was probably as heavy as it was sturdy. The eight cables strained alarmingly, but none looked like fraying, even though they were so taught that they almost didn't vibrate when flicked. Bruce One winced as Bruce Two demonstrated by playing _Advance Australia Fair_ on them.

"Don't do that, mate," he said.

Jasper looked down as the crane's control panel counted down the feet. There were an awful lot of them to go, but Sid was unconcerned.

"Don't worry, me old china. Everything'll be fine."

"That's the last sound people hear before it isn't," said Jasper. "You know what I always say-"

"Safety first," said Sid sarcastically, holding up his hand in a Boy Scout salute.

"The Scout motto is 'be prepared'," said Jasper. "Which I also say a lot. But in this case-"

He paused. The shaft had just been illuminated by the lights set into the walls. A row of red rotating bulbs behind him, in the tunnel that fed from the main drains, began flashing.

"What's going on?" Jasper looked around wildly. Sid looked down the tunnel and swallowed nervously.

"I think," he said, "That we're in trouble."

Jasper turned and saw that the floodgates were opening. The first trickle of water from the main drains was already winding its way down the tunnel towards them. A surge of dry, hot air came from below, rocking the crane's jury-rigged mounting. Sid and Jasper exchanged horrified looks as they heard the Hyde Park Treatment Plant's machinery wake up

* * *

Rita scrambled into the _Flying Malone_'s cockpit after making a cursory effort at tying up the _Jammy Dodger II_. Roddy finished the job and darted across to join her in the Lancaster as she fired up the engine nacelles. Casting off from the side of the outfall, she turned the plane around and steered it onto the lake. 

"Are you sure this is a good idea? What if the pelicans are still there?" Roddy bucked himself into the sea behind the pilot's cockpit. Rita ignored him and was studying the controls, tapping each one in turn.

"All right, we've got pitch, yaw and roll…throttle control…rudder control." She shook her head and began looking under her seat. "There must be a valve of some kind! Help me look for it. There'll be a pipe, and a valve to open it."

Roddy looked down. There was nothing by his feet. He undid his belt and looked over at the third seat. By the left side of the fuselage was a shiny red butterfly valve.

"Found it!"

"Turn it!" said Rita over the engine noise.

Roddy wrenched it round. There was a hiss of gas under pressure. He looked up as the dorsal fuselage burst open. A brightly-coloured mass emerged, inflating rapidly.

"It's a balloon!" he said.

"I know! That's how they landed in the sewers!" Rita punched the controls triumphantly. She had been right! "VTOL- vertical takeoff and landing! Of course! Jasper, you old goat, you might just have saved the day again!"

Roddy watched the balloon inflate to its full, awesome height. It was taller than it was wide- clearly selected to be narrower than the plane it was attached to so as not to defeat its own purpose. It was garishly yellow, striped with purple, but style was not their concern right now.

Having emptied itself of helium, the metal cylinder disengaged and dropped into the lake. Freed of its weight, the _Flying Malone_ rose vertically into the air, water dripping from the floats. Rita laughed as if they'd already done it. Roddy got back into his seat and buckled in again, trying not to think about the widening gap between them and the ground.

"Let's go!" shouted Rita. She reached down and opened the throttle. The engines roared and she began steering the unlikely aircraft towards the distant chimney stack.

* * *

Mr Malone stopped dancing as the waterfall dropped past them. He froze on one leg as he worked out what was happening. The two Bruces, who had been quicker on the uptake, were already sheltering in the cabin. 

"Was this supposed to happen?" said Number One Bruce as Mr Malone joined them. There was already a drumming of water on the roof and the deck was awash with spray.

"What do you think?" said Mr Malone. "Of course not! We're going to be in right trouble if we can't get above the waterfalls quickly!"

"We shouldn't have taken apart the salvage platform," said Bruce Two. "The crane'd have us up there quick-sticks if it didn't have this weight on it."

"I know. But it was my idea." Mr Malone sighed. "All right, it was Bruce's idea but I said yes. I'm sorry, lads."

"Could be worse," said Bruce One.

"Really?"

"Probably not. I just wanted to make you feel good."

The three rats sat together in the cockpit of the derelict ship as the water crashed down around them. Far above them- too far- Jasper and Sid watched helplessly. The rope bridge which was the only way to get to the crane had been swept off its moorings and dangled loosely, marooning them on the platform. There was nothing they could do as their companions below them battled their way up through the descending torrents. The crane's clockwork motor gave up under the battering and jammed.

Sid moaned and looked up.

"If there's anyone up there," he said, clasping his hands together, "I'd just like to say that I'm very sorry for everything. And if there's any help you could send us right now, that'd be great. Amen."

He opened his eyes to see if anyone had been listening. To Sid's surprise, it seemed like they had been. Something was blocking the light from the top of the chimney.


	6. A Family Christmas

"We're right over the chimney!" shouted Roddy. Rita looked over the side of the cockpit and punched a red button on the control panel marked 'IGNITION' on the principle that the same button which turned the engines on would turn them off. Behind her there was an explosion and a panicky yelp. Rita looked around in time to see the seat behind Roddy ascending into the sky on a pair of small rockets. Roddy was staring around wildly.

"I thought you said you could fly this thing! Stop shooting off the ejector seats!"

"I didn't know it had ejector seats!" said Rita, genuinely surprised. "They've modified it since then, remember?"  
"So you actually _don't_ know how to fly it?" Roddy stared in disbelief.

"You want to come up here and have a go? I'll get it right this time!" Rita flashed him a cocky grin and hit a different red button, causing Roddy to make a dive for cover. The engines spluttered into silence.

"There, you see? Nothing to be afraid of." Rita turned back to the controls and began descending, fighting to keep them steady against the winds that toyed with the balloon and the thermal updraught from the chimney itself.

"Who's frightened?" muttered Roddy. The dark circle of the chimney was right below them and he tried to guess how wide it was. Even with the wings folded, the _Flying Malone_ was a sizable machine.

Rita gritted her teeth and hoped that she had judged this right. A crunching sound from behind her told her otherwise.

"It's the tail!" shouted Roddy. The Lancaster's tail had struck the edge of the chimney hard and had almost been torn off by the impact. Held on only by the fabric fuselage lining, it scraped down the wall as they descended into the chimney. Below them, they could hear the terrible sound of the waterfalls crashing into the depths. They were either just in time- or too late.

"Rita! Roddy!"

Rita looked down. Jasper and Sid were standing on the crane platform, waving to them. She descended towards them.

"We've got to get you out of here! Where's Dad and the others?"

Jasper said nothing, but pointed over the edge. Rita looked down and her breath caught in her throat. Far below them, the white-bleached _Jammy Dodger_ was hanging forlornly amid the waterfalls, spray exploding off every surface. It was a miracle it was still in one piece. Rita brought the _Flying Malone_ down and held it level just above the crane platform.

"We've got to do something!" said Roddy. "How can we get the boat out of here?"

"How much lift has this thing got?" said Rita to Jasper.

"We'll find out!" said the mechanic, catching on. He turned to Sid. "Unlock the cable spool! Give me the other end! We'll tie it to the _Malone_'s undercarriage."

Sid gaped. "Unlock the spool? If the brake blocks give way it'll unravel! They'll be dead for sure!"

"We're all dead for sure if this doesn't work!" shouted Rita. "Just bloody well do it, Sid!"

Sid yanked a pin from the crane's neck and passed the other end of its cable to Jasper, who lashed it securely to the Lancaster's floats.

"You've still got to detach the crane from the pipe!" shouted Roddy, pointing to the pins on the platform edge. Sid grabbed up an axe and laid about with a will. Splintered wood dropped into the abyss below them and the crane lurched as it left the pipe. The _Flying Malone_ dropped suddenly before resuming its height. Everything- the crane, Jasper, Sid, the _Jammy Dodger_, the Bruces and Mr Malone- was now entirely dependent on the Lancaster. It wasn't enough. The boat and its three passengers were still in danger and the pounding water threatened to drag everything down after them.

"We've got to lose weight!" shouted Rita to Roddy. "Throw everything we don't need overboard! That goes for you too!" she added to Jasper and Sid.

"She…she doesn't mean me, right?" hissed Sid.

"I don't think so, but I'm prepared to risk being wrong on that," said Jasper, who took the axe from him and hurled it into the abyss. Sid began hurling anything he could get his hands on- tools, spare parts and assorted detritus plunged into the bowels of the treatment plant. It still was not enough. Rita could feel the insistent drag on the plane. It took all her strength just to keep the controls steady.

"I can't hold it for much longer!" she shouted through clenched teeth.

Roddy dumped a roll of fuselage canvas over the side and looked around desperately. They couldn't be out of options yet! He looked aft, and saw where they could lose the weight. The badly-damaged tail was dangling from the body of the _Flying Malone_. Well, they wouldn't be needing that now, would they? Roddy closed his eyes for a moment to concentrate and then clambered out of his seat. Trying not to think of the thundering abyss beneath him, he began inching his way back along the fuselage.

"Roddy! Get back, it's too dangerous!" Rita had felt his movements and had turned to see him clambering through the arched wings.

"If you want to stop me, feel free to leave the controls!" shouted Roddy, stronger than he felt. His head still hurt from the poison gas and a single mis-step would see him fall beyond all help. He reached the broken tail and began kicking at it.

"Come on! Fall off, you blasted thing!"

It finally gave way with a ripping of canvas and a rending of metal. The rear third of the bomber fell away, carrying with it most of the _Flying Malone_'s fuel- but also most of its weight. Like a cork held under water and suddenly released, the crippled plane shot up again and Rita was only just able to steer it into the chimney. Roddy cried out in terror as the Lancaster bucked like a wild horse, throwing him from his precarious perch at the stern. He stuck out an arm and gripped the rear-facing port propeller which creaked under his weight, but held. The walls shot past at a dizzying speed and then they were back in the air, over Kensington. The last rays of Christmas Day were falling across the city as the bizarre apparition levelled out. A badly-damaged model Lancaster was attached to a clockwork crane on which two rats were clinging for dear life. Far below the crane, but now safe, was a wrecked boat with three more passengers. But it was the two rats on the Lancaster who were cheering the loudest as the whole collection drifted down towards the lake.

* * *

Rita leapt down from the cockpit and embraced Roddy tightly as he dropped down from the port wing, still shaking with adrenaline. Jasper and Sid, pitched into the lake as their crane sank beneath them, hauled themselves out of the water in the drain outfall Rita had touched down in and squelched towards them. 

"Not bad, Rodders! Not bad at all!" Sid hugged Roddy, who was so high on relief that he didn't resist the soggy sewer rat.

"Oh, it was really Rita," he said modestly.

Rita jerked a thumb at the bomber. "Sorry about the tail, uncle. I'll help you fix it."

Jasper looked at what was left of his beloved flying machine. "Thanks, but I should be able to manage. Even if I can't, I'm glad she was destroyed doing something worthwhile."

Rita smiled at him. "You never change."

Roddy tapped her on the shoulder and pointed up the outfall. The _Jammy Dodger II_ was there…and so was the _Jammy Dodger I_. The old boat, bleached white by its time in the Treatment Plant, looked almost ghostly as it floated next to its successor. Three figures emerged from the cabin and looked around dumbly.

"Are we dead, Bruce?"

"No, Bruce. We're in London."

"Oh. Pity."

The two Australians noticed the small group gathered by the _Flying Malone_.

"Crikey, talk about a last-minute rescue." Bruce One rubbed the back of his head. "I was just about ready to declare my innings there."

"You and me both, Bruce," said Bruce Two, waving.

Mr Malone said nothing. He looked at his daughter and gave her a small nod to let her know that he was all right. Rita smiled and nodded back. That was all she needed to know.

* * *

Liam Malone was standing at the window of the family home, looking out at the water. Its surface rippled. 

"I think the current's changed, mum," he called. "For real, this time."

Mrs Malone joined him. "It can't have done, though. He's not back yet."

"Dad knows what he's about," said Liam, confidently. "And old man Jasper can do anything."

Mrs Malone didn't reply. She'd gone along with her husband's salvage plans because his ideas usually paid off and seldom went catastrophically wrong thanks to his apparently-inexhaustible depths of sheer luck. It was the same kind of luck which had kept Rita alive, and that was another reason Mrs Malone had let her husband go. Rita was still on holiday with young Roddy, and they had the new _Jammy Dodger _with them. A second boat would be a great asset.

It would also get Mr Malone out of the house, where he had become as ubiquitous as wallpaper and as often underfoot as the carpet. Retirement hadn't done him much good and Mrs Malone knew that he was one of those men who needed to be busy.

"I'm sure he'll be all right," she said vaguely. "He always is."

"Yeah. Right." Liam turned back to the window.

"I'd better get back to the dinner," said Mrs Malone. "Fergus, stop that! Put him down!"

The largest Malone paused in the act of holding Shocky up to the ceiling fan. "It was his idea, mum!"

"Static electricity, mum!" said Shocky, waving a Q-tip happily. He touched it to the hub of the rotating fan to demonstrate.

"Put him down, you little whippersnapper!" snapped Grandmother Malone, poking Fergus with her stick. There was a crackle of electricity and Grandmother Malone ended up sprawled against the far wall, her hair standing on end despite the rollers.

"I haven't seen that many colours for a while…" she muttered.

Shocky grinned, an expression which faded when he saw his mother's look of disapproval.

"Sorry, mum."

Fergus lowered him gently and Shocky attempted to hide the Q-tip behind his back. Mrs Malone rolled her eyes and went back to the kitchen, pausing only to dislodge various daughters from the Christmas tree in the family room.

"It's already got an angel on top, dears, it doesn't need another one. Or five."

"Mum! Mum!"

She sighed. "The current is _not_ changing direction, Liam!"

"Yes it is, mum, but that's not the point!" Liam was gesticulating wildly at something outside.

"What is the point, then?" Mrs Malone went back to join him.

"They're back mum!"

"What? Mr Malone and Jasper?"

"Them too, mum!"

"Well, who else is there?" Mrs Malone stared out of the window, trying to make sense of what she could see.

Two boats were pulling up at the jetty. One was the familiar _Jammy Dodger II_, not seen since Roddy and Rita had left for France some months before. Mrs Malone stared at the boat it was towing.

"It couldn't be…" she said to herself.

* * *

Mr Malone was at the helm of the ghostly white hulk of the _Jammy Dodger I_. He waved to his wife as they came alongside. 

"Hello, dear! I said we'd be back on time!"

Mrs Malone laughed with relief. "It's your father, everyone! Let's go and say hello!" She led the clan out onto the jetty as the two boats tied up. Mr Malone stepped ashore and hugged his wife fondly.

"Would I ever let you down?" he grinned.

Mrs Malone gave him an unreadable but meaningful look. "And Jasper, you're back too! So glad to see you!"

"Glad to be back! And I'm glad to see me too!" he chuckled. Mrs Malone shook her head and greeted the three who just stepped off the boat behind them.

"Sid! Bruce and Bruce! Oh, you're all right, I'm so pleased. We were so worried. Liam kept thinking that the currents were changing back!"

"He was right," said Mr Malone. "They turned the plant back on before we could get out."

"Told you," whispered Liam to Shocky, who hit him with the Q-tip.

"But how did you get back if that happened?" Mrs Malone looked at the group.

"Well, we had some help." Mr Malone pointed to the second boat. Two figures had just dropped onto the jetty, where they were mobbed instantly by the Malone children.

"Rita! Roddy!"

Mrs Malone shook her head in wonderment. "Well, if this isn't all my Christmases rolled into one! Hello, darling, how was the trip?"

Rita disengaged herself from her siblings and embraced her mother. "I couldn't begin to tell you, mum," she said. "Happy birthday. We didn't have time to get you anything, though."

"Oh, you know I don't like to make a fuss about that! But having you two back safe and sound is more than I could ask for. You look very well, Rita. I see Roddy's been taking good care of you?" Mrs Malone raised an eyebrow.

"Ahah, well I'd like to call it a joint effort," said Roddy, grinning awkwardly.

"I bet you would, son," said Mr Malone, approvingly.

"Happy Christmas, Mister Jones!" hollered Grandmother Malone from the top of the steps. Roddy cringed and attempted to hide behind Fergus.

"Back inside, everyone!" Mrs Malone took charge, ushering her children back into the house. She turned to the returnees and smiled.

"Well, I never expected this to happen! Everyone back all together, I'm so pleased. Come on, then. That Christmas dinner won't eat itself, you know!"

She led the way inside. Mr Malone and Jasper followed her, with the Bruces and Sid close behind. Rita took a step towards her house and then looked back to Roddy, who was standing and watching the water with a faint smile on his face.

"Roddy? You're smiling." She took his arm.

"Yes…yes, I was just watching your family and thinking…how lucky I am to be watching them."

"So going back to Kensington did you some good?" She looked at him hopefully.

"We were nearly killed, if you recall."

"Yes, and I recall that you saved me. You saved _us_, in fact. Everyone. And you nearly got yourself killed doing it." Rita led him slowly up the jetty.

"It was the least I could do," said Roddy. "Since it was my fault you were there. Rita, I'm-"

She kissed him to shut him up. "Bad timing, Roddy. It's Christmas! We can talk about that later. But remember- I wanted to be there. Don't ever forget that. Now come on." She turned back to the house.

"No, hang on, we've forgotten something." Roddy extricated his arm from hers and started back to the _Jammy Dodger II_.

"What?" Rita followed him, wondering what he was on about. Roddy went aboard and held up a large cardboard box filled with wrapped objects. Rita laughed. The presents!

"And I thought that I'd be the one who had to remember them!" she said.

"Oh, don't worry. You can thank me later." Roddy grinned. "Besides…I couldn't forget about…_my_ family, could I?"

Rita stared at him, a smile spreading over her face.

"Hurry up, you two! There'll be none left if you don't!"

"Coming, dad!" called Rita over her shoulder. She took one side of the box and led the way back into the house.

* * *

The Bruces were teaching a small gaggle of Malone children the words to various Australian Christmas carols, having been made to promise not to sing anything inappropriate by Grandmother Malone. The threat had lapsed somewhat since Grandmother Malone had located the sherry and was asleep behind the couch. Sid had been banished to the kitchen to do the dishes on the grounds that he had used most of them. 

"You two must have had the most interesting time, visiting all these exotic places," said Mrs Malone. "Voodoo and everything."

"Actually, voodoo isn't from France," said Roddy, holding up a hand.

"It's still foreign, right?" said Mr Malone, whose conception of 'foreign' began somewhere on the outskirts of Birmingham.

"Yes, dad," said Rita, poking Roddy to prevent him issuing another correction. Mr Malone was never going to be a cosmopolitan.

"I've got to take you back to Monaco," said Jasper to Mr Malone. "I'll show you proper foreign. Of course, I'll have to fix the _Flying Malone_ first."

Mr Malone shook his head at the name. He'd been told the story of Monaco twice now and was no closer to understanding it.

"It sounds like you'd have had a safer time staying here," he said to Rita and Roddy. "Tangling with gangsters and everything else. And running into the Toad again."

"Safer? Probably. But not as interesting." Rita shifted closer to Roddy and pretended not to notice the approving looks her parents traded. She looked around at her siblings, all of whom were playing with their new presents. Miniature Eiffel Towers were being used as rocket ships or shuttlecocks.

"Definitely not as interesting," said Roddy, who was doing the same with an expression that was almost proud.

"I'd love to hear more of it," said Mrs Malone. She turned suddenly to the Bruces. "I heard that! I'll not have language like that in my house!"

The two Australians paused mid-verse and stared at her.

"It's the name of a bird, missus!" objected Number One Bruce.

"Perfectly innocent," agreed Number Two Bruce.

"It's pronounced cock_-a-too_," clarified Bruce One. "You've a dirty mind there, Mrs Malone. The lyric is _take a cockatoo_."

Roddy and Rita laughed. Mrs Malone turned back and crossed her arms.

"Don't encourage them," said Jasper.

"How you put up with them, Jasper, I don't know." Mrs Malone shook her head.

"I try not to," said Jasper. "But make sure Sid stays here. It's bad enough with those two in stereo, I don't need Sid there to make it Surround Sound time. Even if they are half-decent mechanics."

"There's nobody else who could help you, Jasp?" said Mr Malone.

Jasper shrugged. "Well, I've got a grandson up in Inverness but that's too far to go."

"No help, then?"

"I haven't seen him for years, actually," said Jasper. "Probably wouldn't recognise each other."

"It must be nice having grandchildren," said Mrs Malone wistfully, accompanied by a none-too-subtle look in Rita's direction.

"We'll help fix the plane," said Rita, pretending to ignore it. "Sorry about breaking it."

"Given a choice between it and me? I'm not complaining," said Jasper. "I'm glad to see my modifications worked all right though."

"They worked brilliantly," said Rita, "I can't imagine how long it took you to do it."

"Well, we took our time getting it right," said Jasper. "Safety first."

"Obviously, because you wouldn't want to do anything risky in it," said Roddy pointedly, remembering the ejector seat.

"That's right," said Jasper, impervious to sarcasm.

"Your boat worked all right, though, didn't it?" said Mr Malone. "No problems with the _Dodger_? I mean, the new one."

"None we couldn't deal with," said Rita, deciding that now was not the best time to catalogue the mechanical faults which had dogged them. Mr Malone seemed happy.

"That's the way. A place for everything and everything in its place, isn't that right, dear?"

Mrs Malone nodded and gave a small cough to indicate a change of conversational drift. "Which reminds me, Rita, you had to pack in a bit of hurry to leave. You didn't happen to come across-"

Rita grinned and pulled a bundle of white silk from the box under her chair. "I wondered when you were going to ask, mum. You must have left it on board _by accident_. Right?"

She tossed her mother's wedding dress across to her. Mrs Malone caught it and had the decency to look embarrassed.

"Oh, good point!" said Roddy. "Sorry, Mr Malone. I'd return that ring you _accidentally_ left in my jacket, only we used it as a joining brace on the fuel pump."

"The ring? Oh…that…" Mr Malone wasn't the sort of person to be easily embarrassed, but he at least looked slightly contrite. Roddy and Rita exchanged satisfied glances. The whole holiday had been her parents' idea and there was some enjoyment to be had in preventing them from claiming a complete victory as matchmakers.

"Well, at least you found a use for it," muttered Mr Malone. "Not the use I thought you'd find, obviously, but-"

"What did you think I'd do with it?" said Roddy, innocently.

"Yes, and Jasper thought of turning your wedding dress into a parachute, mum," said Rita, in the same tone of wilful ignorance. "You should be more careful where you put it, you know, something might happen to it."

"Pardon?" said Jasper, who had been watching the Bruces carefully.

"I'm just telling mum where she should put her wedding dress, Jasper," said Rita, grinning nastily. Roddy gave a warning cough.

Mrs Malone looked at the clock on the wall, grateful for the distraction. "Good grief, it's past midnight! Come on, you lot, off to bed!" She shepherded the children upstairs.

Rita stood up and yawned. "We'd all better turn in as well. We had a bit of a late night last night, didn't we Roddy?"

Roddy grinned. "Not so much that as an early morning," he said, getting up as well.

Mrs Malone shrugged. "I'd put you up in here, of course, but with Jasper and his friends here we've got no room."

"We can sleep on the _Dodger_," said Rita. "I mean, on the _Dodger II_."

"It's not right, you coming all the way back and having to sleep on the boat," said Mr Malone. "Are you sure about that?"

"Of course," said Rita. "It isn't as if we haven't done it before."

"All right, then," said Mrs Malone. "Happy Christmas, everyone. I'm so glad we were all here to see it. Leave the rest of the dishes, Sid!"

"Sweet!" came an answering yell, accompanied by the crash of plates.

"Well, good night everyone," said Mr Malone. "Sleep well."

* * *

Roddy and Rita left and shut the door behind them. Arm in arm, they went back to the boat. 

"You know, it just occurred to me that I forgot to get you a Christmas present, Rita. I'm terribly sorry."

"Don't worry about it, Roddy. We've both been a bit busy. I didn't find one for you, either, so we'll call it a draw." She gave him a small smile.

"Well...thanks...but that's not the only thing I'm sorry for." He turned her towards him, his brown eyes filled with concern, and said what she had stopped him from saying before. "I've been so stupid recently. I nearly got us both killed in Kensington."

"You saved me, Roddy," said Rita quietly.

"I'd have sooner stayed than left you." Roddy dropped his gaze. "Neither of us should have been there at all but I was an idiot and-"

"No." Rita stroked his ear gently. "You went back because you felt you had to. You're apologising to me and I wanted to go with you, but you feel like you have to. You feel things, and although you don't always show it, Roddy, I think you feel them deeper than most people can. Going back can't have been easy for you and we shared the danger together, but _you_ still feel sorry for _me_."

"That's because I put you through it all for nothing!" Roddy took her wrist and held it.

"You didn't put me through anything I didn't volunteer for," said Rita, taking his hand. "And you saved my father and all the others. It wasn't nothing."

Roddy shook his head hopelessly and tried to put his feelings into words. "You may have volunteered but I talked you into it. It was my fault. All of it." The guilt rose up inside him and for one awful moment he felt as if he would start crying again. The lights in the house went out, plunging them into darkness and Rita held Roddy's hand tighter as she spoke.

"You think you can talk me into anything I don't want to do?" She tried to put a wry smile on her face, but failed. This wasn't a time for her usual tough-captain routine. Roddy was clearly in pain and she hated the sight of it. Even in the dark, his eyes glistened with unshed tears. She tried again.

"You're too hard on yourself. You care so much that you assume responsibility for things beyond your control, and that makes you so vulnerable." She touched a tender hand to his cheek. "Don't feel guilty. Don't feel ashamed. Whatever changed for you these past few days, one thing is the same- and that is that I love you. I love you and I will never, ever let you carry a heavier burden than you should." She hugged him. Roddy held her like a drowning man holds a log, buried his face in her scarlet hair and took a deep, shuddering breath.

"Thank you," he said simply. "And I love you too. That's why I tried slipping away before. I love you and I knew it would be hard. I'm so sorry"

"Nothing to thank me for," replied Rita. "Nothing to be sorry for either."

They broke the hug and stood there for a moment, just looking at each other.

"They replaced me, you know," said Roddy after a while. "They replaced me with Sid and then he left and they replaced him. How can they not notice?"

"That's Up Top for you," said Rita. "But you're not Up Top any longer. You're down here and I wouldn't replace you for anything."

"No?"

"Good first mates are hard to find, you know." Rita patted him, sensing the upturn of the conversation. "So if you ever see one, let me know."

Roddy laughed. Rita took his arm and led him down the jetty, yawning deeply.

"Not like you to be getting tired," said Roddy, surprised.

"Well, it can take it out of you, this business." Rita smiled. Roddy looked down and realised that she was wearing a red ribbon around her waist, tied artfully into a bow. He glanced up. Rita inclined her head slightly towards the boat and raised an eyebrow.

"Yes…all of a sudden, I feel a little battle-weary myself," he said, grinning.

They boarded the _Jammy Dodger II _and moved quietly into the stern.

"Well…happy Christmas, Roddy."

"Happy Christmas, Rita. I hope you're not too tired."

"I am a little tired, to tell you the truth." Rita sat down on the bed and kicked off her boots.

"That's not surprising, after today," said Roddy.

Rita smiled. "You mean after everything in the last few months! You know…I think…I think…"

"Yes?"

She laughed and took his hand, pulling him to sit beside her on the bed.

"I think we could do with a holiday, Roddy. Don't you?"

_The End_


End file.
